ill 




- 

; 



<3 '-j, K 



X 



DANIEL 

VERIFIED IN 

HISTORY AND CHRONOLOGY. 



SHOWING THE COMPLETE FULFILMENT OF ALL HIS PROPH- 
ECIES, RELATING TO CIVIL AFFAIRS, BEFORE THE 
CLOSE OF THE FIFTH CENTURY. 



BY A. M. v OSBON, D. D. 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION, 

BY D. D. WHEDON, D. D. 




PUBLISHED BY CARLTON <fc PHILLIPS, 

200 MULBEBBY-STBEET. 

18.56. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S56 T by 

CARLTON & PHILLIPS, 

in the Clerk's Office.- of the District Court of the Southern District 
of New-York. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Despise not prophesyings is a caution which, 
with but little variation from its original im- 
port, might well be addressed to the modern, 
as to the primitive Church. If prophecy was 
littered for the benefit of its own age, or its own 
audience, it was recorded for the permanent 
benefit of all ages and the world. An integral 
part of the word of God, it is not to be struck 
from the interests of the Church until it is 
struck from the sacred canon. It is wisely and 
forever deposited in our sacred archives, a guide 
for the Church, through the darkest periods of 
her history, to a glorious future, and furnishing 
the evidence of a perpetual miracle, brightening 
^with an increasing lustre through the lapse of 
time, for the authenticity of the sacred volume. 

But to the prophetic claim of being a guide 
a retort will be returned, not untinged with 
sneer, about the bewildering uncertainty of that 
guide, the variety of the paths to which it has 



4 



INTRODUCTION. 



pointed, and the many faithful inquirers it has 
led astray and half maddened. But all that can 
be urged against the prophecy of the Bible, can, 
with just as much plausibility and as little truth, 
be urged against the theology of the Bible. 
Have heresies found no proof-texts, or fanaticism 
no stimulant, from the doctrinal teachings of 
Scripture? And yet, we little doubt, that to 
the earnest and honest inquirer into funda- 
mental truths, the Bible is a plain book ; and 
just as little do we doubt that, in regard to the 
great outlines of prophecy, the same singleness 
of purpose will bring the great class of inquir- 
ing minds to the same general conclusions. In- 
deed, the one great inspiring principle, of the 
ultimate triumph of good over evil, is the one 
steady pole-star which prophecy has held aloft 
in the firmament of the Church through the 
darkest nights of human history. And thus 
has prophecy, under every variety of interpret- 
ation, fulfilled her promise to the child of God 
— " I will give him the morning star." 

Nor as an evidence is the Church justified in 
allowing, by neglect or under- valuation, one of 
her main pillars to fall or crumble. Bishop 
[Newton informs us, that he was induced to 
undertake his great work on the prophecies, by 



INTRODUCTION. 



5 



the skeptical objections of the commander-in- 
chief of the British army. To the argument 
from* prophecy, the warrior replied that the 
predictions were written after the event. But 
when it was boldly rejoined that there were not 
a few predictions now in process of fulfilment^ 
a new sobriety shaded his countenance, and he 
frankly owned that such a fact must furnish the 
demonstration of an ever fresh and perpetually 
repeated miracle. Now, in spite of subordinate 
variations of view, we do not hesitate to affirm, 
that the students of prophecy can present before 
the public such an amount of accord in regard 
to modern fulfilments and transpiring develop- 
ments, as to constitute a body of evidence de- 
serving to be placed by constant repetition in 
popular form before the public eye. 

It is just this purpose which the following 
little work, by Dr. Osbon, is, we think, very 
admirably adapted to fulfil. The author has 
devoted many a studious hour, through a num- 
ber of years of arduous and able pulpit-labour, 
to the subject of prophetic science. He has 
read many an author with an inquiring yet 
independent mind. He has selected that pro- 
phetic Book which presents the most striking 
pictures of the future with a clearness and 



6 INTRODUCTION . 

system that impress the imagination. In some 
striking points he has made original sugges- 
tions, to which, while many may assent, Jthose 
who differ from him will concede the merit of 
ingenuity and the happy accident of singular 
coincidence. The whole is clothed in a lucid 
style of language, and shaped to a popular 
form. While the results of patient study are 
presented, all display of recondite learning or 
bristling philology is avoided. AYe recommend 
it to the cordial reception of both our ministry 
and people, and trust it will do a valuable ser- 
vice in awakening and gratifying a deep inter- 
est in one of the most attractive departments of 
sacred truth, 

D. D. Whedon. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

A GENERAL ANALYSIS OP THE BOOK OF DANIEL, SHOWING THE 
SCOPE AND GENERAL PURPOSE OF THE SEVERAL PROPHETIC 
VISIONS. — REASONS FOR THINKING THAT THE TENTH CHAPTER 
HAS NO CONNEXION WITH ANY OTHER PORTION OF THE BOOK. 

Introduction — Chronological Table, p. 14, 15 — Prophecy has Specific 
Objects, p. 16 — Division of the Book, p. 17 — Chapter I, p. 18 — Chapter 
LT: Nebuchadnezzar's Dream: its Prophetic Purpose, p. 18-21 — 
Chapter III: Subject, p. 21 — Chapter IV: Nebuchadnezzar's Second 
Dream, p. 22— Chapter V : The Fall of the Chaldean Monarchy, p. 23 
— Dr. A. Clarke's Remarks upon the Chronology of this Event, p. 25 
— Chapter VI, ends the Historical Part of the Book of Daniel, p. 27 
— Chapter VII : The Commencement of the Prophetical Portion of 
the Book, p. 28 — The Character of the Exposition,^. — Errors which 
have influenced other Expositions, p. 29-32. — Analysis of Chapter 
VII, p. 32 — The Design of the Revelation made to Nebuchadnezzar, 
p. 33— The End of the "Vision," p. 34— Why this Revelation was 
made to Daniel, p. 35— Chapter VEI : General Subject of the Chap- 
ter, p. 38-— The Rest of the Book of Daniel, except the Tenth Chap- 
ter, is a Continuation of the Prophecy of the Eighth— Reasons for 
excepting the Tenth Chapter— Remarks upon Dr. A. Clarke's Opin- 
ion concerning u the Third Year of Cyrus," p. 38-40. 



8 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER EL 

THE GREAT IMAGE. 

THE DREAM — THE INTERPRETATION OF THE DREAM — THE FOUR 

KINGDOMS IDENTIFIED THE FOURTH KINGDOM — THE KINGDOM 

OF THE STONE — THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE PROPHECY, ETC. 

Daniel ii— The Text, p. 41, 42— The Meaning of the Symbol, p. 44 
— The Four Kingdoms identified, p. 46 — The First Kingdom, p. 46 — 
The Second, p. 47— The Third, p. 48— The Fourth, p. 50— The Limits 
of the Dream, p. 52 — The Event which ends the Vision, p. 53-55 — 
The Time and Place occupied by the Dream, corroborated by the 
Kingdom of the Stone, p. 55-69 — A general View of the Meaning of 
the Vision, p. 70, 71 — Objections to this Interpretation considered : 
that our Interpretation makes Prophecy too Secular; many 
Prophecies are of this Character, p. 71 — Objection founded in a Mis- 
conception of the Objects and Structure of Prophecy, p. 73 — Each 
Prophecy complete in itself, p. 74 — Words have only one Meaning 
in common Discourse, p. 75 — The true Double Sense stated and il- 
lustrated by Rev. xvii, 5, p. 75—79 — Objection founded in the sup- 
posed " Ten Kingdoms." Ten "Toes" have no Prophetical Significa- 
tion, p. 79-81 — The Division of the Fourth Kingdom foreshown by 
the Admixture of Clay with Iron, and not by the " Toes," p. 81-87. 

CHAPTER m. 

THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS. 

THE BEASTS IDENTIFIED — THE FOURTH BEAST — THE TEN 
HORNS — THE LITTLE HORN AND HIS TRANSACTIONS IDENTI- 
FIED — OBJECTIONS TO THE EXPOSITION ANSWERED. 

The Text, Daniel vii, 1-27, p. 88-90— Recapitulation of the last Chap- 
ter, p. 90, 91— Date of this Vision ; the Mat erial points of the Investi- 
gation stated, p. 92— Symbolical Meaning of the Sea, p. 92, 93 — 



CONTENTS. 



s 



Reasons for symbolizing Nations and Political Powers by Beasts. 
The Historical Meaning of the "Four Beasts," p. 94-96 — Destruc- 
tion of the Fourth Beast ends the Vision, p. 96-100 — The Meaning 
of the Horns, p. 10O-105— Recapitulation, p. 106— The Date at 
which the Little Horn appears, p. 107 — The Ten Kings symbolized 
by the " Ten Horns," p. 110 — The Character of Domitian shown to 
fulfil the Prophecy concerning the Eleventh Horn, p. Ill — In the 
Persecutions which he would inflict upon the People of God, p. 112 
— In his Blasphemies against God, p. 112, 113 — For " a time, times, 
and the dividing of a time," p. 114-118 — In the Overthrow of his 
Dominion, p. 119, 120 — A Summary of the Argument, p. 120 — The 
Objection that " a time " denotes a Prophetic Year answered, p. 
121-124 — That it is the Day of Final Judgment which is described 
shown to be a mere Assumption, p. 124-127. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE VISION OF THE RAM AND THE HE-GOAT. 

THE KINGDOMS IDENTIFIED — THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE VISION — 

THE FOUR HORNS EXPLAINED THE FIFTH HORN THE TIME, 

PLACE, PERSON, AND TRANSACTIONS VERIFIED IN HISTORY 

THE TWO THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED EXPLAINED. 

Daniel viii, ix, xi, xii. The Text — Vision and Interpretation, 
p. 131 — The Field of Investigation, both in History and Chronology ; 
the Meaning of the Symbols, p. 133 — Of the Inequality of the 
Horns, p. 134 — The Symbol of the "Goat" explained, p. 135 — The 
"Great Horn " of the Goat identified, p. 137 — The principal Points 
of the Discussion are the "Fifth Horn" and the "Two Thousand 
and Three Hundred Days," p. 139 — The Partition of Alexander's 
Kingdom, p. 141 — The Chronology of the Vision settled, p. 142-145 
— The " Little Horn " traced in Alexander's Successors to Antiochus 
Epiphanes, p. 145-154 — His History fulfils the Prophetic Sketch, 
p. 154-161 — The Two Thousand and Three Hundred Days ex* 
plained, p. 161-171— Recapitulation, p. 171, 172. 



10 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE PERIODS OF CHAPTER TWELVE. 

THE PERIODS OF CHAPTER XII — THE RESURRECTION OF VERSE 
SECOND EXPLAINED — "TIME, TIMES, AND THE DIVIDING OF 
TIME* 1 — THE TWELVE HUNDRED AND NINETY DAYS — THE THIR- 
TEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FIVE DAYS TERMINATING UPON THE 
NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE OF THE JEWS — DANIEL'S RETURN TO 
JERUSALEM — CONCLUSION. 

A general Review of some Points relating to the Vision of the Ram 
and He-Goat, p. 173 — The Doubts and Fears of Daniel in Relation 
to the Captivity of his People, the Cause of his Anguish and Fasting, 
p. 174 — Daniel's Prayer, and the Answer, p. 175 — Prideaux's Expo- 
sition of the Seventy Weeks, p. 178-181 — The first three Verses of 
Chapter Twelve explained, p. 182-187— The End of the Wonders, 
p. 187— The Twelve Hundred and Ninety Days, p. 188-190— The 
Thirteen Hundred and Thirty-five Days — The Period at which they 
Commence — The Date of their Termination, p. 19Q-194 — The last 
Verse of Chapter Twelve explained, and shown not to Teach the 
Doctrine of the Resurrection — The Return of Daniel to the Land 
of Judea Possible, if not Probable, p. 194 — Meaning of the Word 
" Lot," p. 196— No Proof that Daniel died in Babylon, p. 197— The 
Daniel who went to Babylon compared with the Daniel who re- 
turned from Babylon, p. 198— The Conclusion, p. 199-202. 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



CHAPTEK I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

A GENERAL ANALYSIS OP THE BOOK OF DANIEL, SHOWING THE 
SCOPE AND GENERAL PURPOSE OP THE SEVERAL PROPHETIC 
VISIONS — REASONS FOR THINKING THAT THE TENTH CHAPTER 
HAS NO CONNEXION WITH ANY OTHER PORTION OF THE BOOK. 

It is comparatively easy to account for the strong 
opposition which Jews and infidels have made 
to the Book of Daniel. Perhaps no one of the 
inspired seers has given more direct and convin- 
cing proof of the Messiahship of Jesus Christ 
than the prophet Daniel. Certain it is that no 
one of them has so explicitly marked the chron- 
ological period of Christ's advent. Yielding our 
faith to the guidance of deductions which arise 
from attributing to his words their most nat- 
ural and obvious sense, we can scarcely fail to 
recognize the grand era of Christ's appearing in 



12 DANIEL VERIFIED TR HISTORY. 



our world. It seems highly probable that the 
prophetic light emanating from this book con- 
tributed, in no inconsiderable degree, to lead the 
Jews to expect the Messiah at the time in which 
he did actually make his advent into our world. 
But, as he disappointed the secular expectations 
of the Jews, he was not only rejected by them, 
but they soon learned, also, to despise a prophet 
whom they had once revered as a messenger of 
God; chiefly, it may be presumed, because either 
they must confess Jesus Christ, or invalidate trie 
divine authority of one who had furnished such 
abundant evidence with which to identify the 
coming of the world's Eedeemer. Modern Jews 
have chosen to deny the inspiration of the Book 
of Daniel. Nor have they been wanting in 
faithful allies in this crusade, for infidels from 
the days of the profane Porphyry, in the third 
century, down to the time of the blaspheming 
Spinoza of Holland, and Hobbes and Collins of 
England, in the seventeenth century, as well as 
many of the speculating neologists of still 
later generations, have evidently been impelled 
by a similar motive in their fruitless attempt to 
set aside the moral evidence which the fulfilled 
prophecies of this book furnish to the truth of 
Christianity. 



GENERAL ANALYSIS. 



13 



As we have proposed to ourselves to explain 
the predictions contained in this prophecy, and 
not to vindicate the authority of the book, we 
shall proceed at once to a general analysis of its 
contents. 

As much of the perplexity which the general 
student of prophecy feels, arises from the want 
of sufficient attention to the time in which the 
prophet wrote ; so by a careful consideration of 
the chronology of prophecy, much of the obscu- 
rity which hangs over this part of the sacred 
writings is removed. We feel that we shall 
render a good service to the common reader of 
the Bible by placing before him the following 
table, by which he will see at a glance the 
several periods in which the prophetic books 
respectively were written. The prophetical 
books of the Old Testament are sixteen in num- 
ber, four of which, namely, Isaiah, Jeremiah, 
Ezekiel, and Daniel, are denominated the 
Greater Prophets, and the remaining twelve 
Lesser or Minor Prophets. This distinction is 
founded chiefly upon the comparative size of 
their writings. The following is their chrono- 
logical order, showing when they were written, 
and during whose reigns, both in the kingdoms 
of Judea and Israel : 



14 



DJOsIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 





BEFORE CHRIST. 


KINGS OF JUDAH. 


KINGS OF ISRAEL. 


Jonah. 


Between 856 and 
784 




Jehu and Jeho- 
ahaz, accord- 
ing to Bishop 
Lloyd ; but 
Jeroboam II., 
according to 
Blair. (2 Kings 
xiv, 25.) 


Amos. 


Between 810 and 
785. 


Uzziah, chap, i, 1. 


Jeroboam II., 
chap, i, 1. 


Hosea. 


Between 810 and 

i ZD. 


Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, 
the third year of 
Hezekiah. 


Jeroboam II., 
chap, i, 1. 


Isais.il. 


Between blO and 
698. 


Tjzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, 
and Hezekiah, chap, 
i, 1, and perhaps Ma- 
tt asseh. 




Joel. 


Between 810 and 
660, or later. 


Uzziah, or possibly 
Manasseh. 




Micah. 


Between 753 and 
699. 


Jotham, Ahaz, and 
Hezekiah, chap, i, 1. 


Pekah and 
Hosea. 


Nahum. 


Between 720 and 
698. 


Probably toward the 
close of Hezekiah's 
reign. 


Ilosea was the last of the Icings of Israel. 


Zephaniah. 


Between 640 and 
609. 


In the reign of Josiah, 
chap, i, 1. 


Jeremiah. 


Between 628 and | In the thirteenth year 
586. of Josiah. 


Habakkuk. j Between 612 and j Probably in the reign 
59S. of Jehoiakim. 


Daniel. 


1 

Between 606 and During all the cap- 
534. tivity. 



GENERAL ANALYSIS. 15 





BEEOEE CHEI5T. 


KINGS OF J'CDAH. 


- 


Obadiah. 


Between 5S3 and 

ooo. 


Between the taking of 
Jerusalem by Nebu- 
chadnezzar and the 
destruction of the 
Edomites by him. 




EzekieL 


Between 595 and 
536. 


During part of the 
captivity. 




Haggai. 


About 520 to 51S. 


After the return from 
Babylon. 




Zechariah. 


From 520 to 51S, 
or longer. 






Malachi. 


Between 436 and 
420. 







The foregoing table, which was prepared by 
Bishop Gray, although it may not give the 
precise date of the predictions to which it re- 
lates, will yet be found sufficiently accurate for 
ascertaining the chronology of prophecy, and 
for connecting its announcements with the his- 
torical facts to which they relate. And it is 
scarcely possible to obtain a just and compre- 
hensive view of prophecy without constantly 
referring to the date of its respective announce- 
ments. By consulting the table now placed 
before him, the reader will be able to classify 
these prophetic books according to their true 
chronological order. Taking the year 606 B. C. 



16 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



as the date of the fall of Judah, then all the 
prophets who preceded Jeremiah prophesied 
during the existence of the Jewish polity. Some 
of them, as, for example, Zephaniah, lived very 
near the time of the captivity. Those who 
lived and prophesied during the captivity in 
Babylon were Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Daniel, 
Obadiah, and Ezekiel. The remaining three 
wrote after the return of the Jews from their 
seventy years' absence from home. 

Assuming, for the present, that all prophecy 
which relates to the domestic and national 
welfare of men, or those tribes of them respect- 
ively to which its various announcements refer, 
is specific, having its motives in the particular 
state and characteristics of those addressed, it 
will be seen that no intelligent progress can be 
made in the exposition of these fore-announce- 
ments, without constant regard to the chro- 
nology of the prophecy, and the history of the 
nation or tribe to which the specifications of 
the announcement refer. We shall here illus- 
trate the importance of these suggestions. Take 
that class of prophecies which relates to the res- 
toration of the Jews — including the ten tribes 
of Israel. N"ow if it shall be found that all 
which is said in relation to that interesting 



GENERAL ANALYSIS. 



17 



subj ect, was said before their settlement in their 
country, at the close of the seventy years' cap- 
tivity ; that the prophets who wrote subsequent 
to that important era in their history say nothing 
about the reunion of all the tribes, and the reor- 
ganization of the nation upon the old principles 
of confederation ; and that the earlier prophets 
did specify and promise this state of things 
before and during the continuance of the cap- 
tivity ; and especially as there is abundant 
proof that all the tribes did return under the 
favor of Cyrus, are w r e not necessarily limited 
to the general chronology of that portion of 
Jewish history in finding the historical verifica- 
tions of those ancient prophecies promising their 
return? Any other mode of exposition than 
that here suggested, whatever be the particular 
subject to which it may be applied, will work 
out exegetical results not only wholly unsatis- 
factory in themselves, but essentially erroneous 
in doctrine and the collation of facts. We shall 
recur to this topic after having given a general 
analysis of the prophetic book under discussion, 
and lay before our readers some rules which 
will govern us in the exposition which is to 
follow. 

This Book has an obviously natural division. 
2 



18 DANIEL VEKIFIED IN HISTORY. 



The first six chapters are historical, and the re- 
maining six are prophetical. 

Chapter I commences with a brief account 
of the fall of Jehoiakim. and his subjugation by 
the king of Babylon. This happened in the 
year 606 B. C. "At this time," says Lowth, 
" Jehoiakim having become tributary to the 
king of Babylon, consequently the seventy 
years of the Jewish captivity and vassalage in 
Babylon began." 

This chapter, however, is principally employ- 
ed with an account of the education of young 
Daniel and his three juvenile friends, whom 
Nebuchadnezzar had ordered to be educated 
"to stand in the king's palace." This account of 
Daniel and his people is very abruptly broken 
off at the close of the chapter ; and it seems 
likely that the subject-matter of the succeeding 
chapter occurred at a period several years later 
than the transactions above alluded to. 

In Chapter II we have an account of Neb- 
uchadnezzar's dream, which he, failing to recall 
in his waking hours, fruitlessly sought to recov- 
er by the aid of his magicians and astrologers. 
The dream and the signification of it were both 



GENERAL ANALYSIS. 



19 



revealed to Daniel. (See verse 24, to the end 
of the chapter.) 

The prophetical import of this dream will 
furnish one topic of the ensuing discussion. 
We shall not, therefore, anticipate the exposition 
to be given to it, at this stage of the investiga- 
tion, further than will be unavoidably done in 
a few remarks upon the evident design of this 
vision. The purpose of the dream is clearly 
intimated in the twenty-ninth verse, which is 
as follows: 

"As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came 
into thy mind upon thy bed, what should come 
to pass hereafter : and he that revealeth secrets 
maketh known to thee what shall come to pass." 

It is evident, from the allusion in this text to 
the subject-matter of his meditations just pre- 
vious to his falling into slumber, that Nebuchad- 
nezzar had been discussing plans for the future 
disposition of his vast empire. "Whether wish- 
ing to retire from the onerous responsibilities of 
his government, to enjoy the quiet and rest of 
private citizenship ; or whether, oppressed with 
the infirmities of age, he felt that his career 
must soon close, it is now of little consequence 
to inquire. It is sufficient to our purpose to 
know that he was meditating some proximate 



f 

20 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

change in the government of the empire in which 
he reigned ; indeed, it was the declared purpose 
of the dream to show Nebuchadnezzar "what" 
should "corue to pass hereafter/' (Terse 45.) 

This declaration makes it very evident, that 
any interest which the Jews had in the subject- 
matter of the revelation here made was inci- 
dental^ pot primary } that it was general and 
common, not peculiar and ececlusive. It was to 
foreshadow the progress and fate of empires ; 
not of Nebuchadnezzar's own exclusively, but 
also of the succeeding ones, till the ushering in 
of a day when God should exercise a sovereign 
sway in the earth. The prophetic matter of 
the dream is therefore to be interpreted by 
the evident design and scope of this revelation. 

And it may be remarked at this time, that 
although much of the same history is involved in 
the vision which Daniel saw shadowed forth 
under a very different symbolical drapery, 
(chap, vii,) yet the leading purpose of that reve- 
lation was very dissimilar to that adumbrated by 
the dream of Nebuchadnezzar. While the lat- 
ter, according to the declared purpose of it, was 
to show "the king what should come to pass 
hereafter" in the history and action of civil em- 
pires, the former was to show the General 



CtENERAL analysis. 



21 



Church, and the world, more specifically than 
had yet been revealed, the time when the king- 
dom of God should be set up in the earth. This 
event constitutes the grand limitation of the 
vision of the seventh chapter, (chap, vii, 9-14,) 
or it is that prominent event in the history of 
the consecutive scene spread out before his 
mind, upon which the eye of the seer rested. 
"We trust it will be satisfactorily shown, that no 
event is foretold by this vision, beyond what 
belongs to the incipient history of that kingdom 
which the God of heaven was to set up. 

The suggestions now made respecting the 
scope of these revelations are corroborated by the 
fact, that the historical portion of this book was 
written in Chaldee, while the prophetical part 
of it was written in Hebrew : a plain intimation, 
this, that the matter of the former principally 
concerned the Chaldeans, and that the latter 
chiefly involved the welfare of the Jews, and 
embodied the religious interests of the world. 
These points will receive full illustration in their 
appropriate place in the progress of this dis- 
cussion. 

Chapter III is employed in giving an account 
of the great image which Nebuchadnezzar caused 



22 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



to be set up, and for refusing to worship which, 
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego were cast 
into a fiery furnace. In the progress of the 
narrative there is an account of the mirac- 
ulous preservation of these heroic champions 
of truth, and of the honour which thereby re- 
dounded to the name of the Lord of hosts, and 
of the preferment which ensued to his faithful 
servants. 

Chapter IY contains an account of another 
prophetic dream had by Nebuchadnezzar. 

This chapter seems to have been transcribed 
from the state papers of the empire. It is a 
proclamation which the king issued upon his 
restoration to the throne, commanding all who 
were subject to his authority to "extol and 
honour the King of heaven," whose ways and 
judgments had been so terribly illustrated in. his 
dealings with the proud and profane Nebuchad- 
nezzar. 

In the dream narrated in this edict, it was fore- 
shown by the symbol of a great tree which it 
was commanded should be cut down, that the 
kino; should be driven forth from his throne and 
friends to dwell with the beasts of the field, and 
to eat grass as oxen until seven times should pass 



GENERAL ANALYSIS. 



23 



over hiin, till lie should know that the "Most 
High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth 
it to whomsoever he will." 

The children of the captivity, it will be seen, 
had no other than a general interest in the sub- 
ject-matter of this revelation. It primarily and 
principally concerned the Chaldean monarch 
and his people. 

The whole transaction is very remarkable. In 
some of its important features it is without a 
parallel in the history of men, and well illus- 
trates the evil and danger of pride and arrogance 
before God. 

Chapter Y contains a succinct account of the 
fall of the Chaldean monarchy under the reign 
of Belshazzar. Unwarned by the significant 
chastisements which his wicked grandfather had 
suffered, (as above related,) he fully emula- 
ted the pride and presumption of his prede- 
cessors. It was amid the wild revellings of their 
feast, in which they sacrilegiously used the gold- 
en vessels of God's temple, that the unknown 
hand delineated upon the gorgeous walls of 
the banqueting house the appalling sentence, 
" Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsen"." a sentence 
which was terribly executed ere the shadows 



24 DANIEL VERIFIED IX HISTOPwY, 



of the night had passed away : u For in that 
night vjas Belshazzar the Icing of the Chaldeans 
slain. And Darius the Jfedian tool: the king- 
dom. Icing about three-score and, tv:o years old " 
(Verses 30, 31.) 

Sever was chastisement more richly merit- 
ed — never did ruin come down more like a 
storm than did that which fell upon the impious 
and sacrilegious Belshazzar by the hand of Da- 
rius, the victorious Mecle. This event happened, 
according to Eoilin, A. M. 3468, or B. C. 536. 
"Thus," he says, "ended the Babylonian empire, 
after having subsisted two hundred and ten 
years from the destruction of the great Assyrian 
empire.*'' 

It will be seen, by comparing the dates of the 
several events related in the book of Daniel, 
that this chapter is out of its proper chronolog- 
ical order, as the book is now arranged. The 
visions which were shown to Daniel, and re- 
corded in the seventh and eighth chapters, both 
took place prior to the occurrence of the events 
which are recorded in the fifth chapter. Had 
the book, therefore, been arranged according to 
the order in which things took place, this chap- 
ter would have been placed after the seventh 
and eighth. 



GENERAL ANALYSIS. 



25 



* There are," says Dr. A. Clarke, " difficulties 
in the chronology? The following is his mode 
of reconciling them, which certainly appears 
very reasonable : "After the death of Nebuchad- 
nezzar, Evil-merodach, his son, ascended the 
throne of Babylon. Having reigned about two 
years, he was slain by his brother-in-law, JSferig- 
lissar. He reigned four years, and was suc- 
ceeded by his son, Labor osoarchod, who reigned 
only nine months. At his death Belshazzar, the 
son of Evil-merodach, was raised to the throne, 
and reigned seventeen years, and was slain, as 
we read here, by Cyrus, who surprised and took 
the city on the night of this festivity. This is 
the chronology on which Archbishop Usher and 
other learned chronologists agree ; but the 
Scriptures mention only Nebuchadnezzar, Evil- 
merodach, and Belshazzar by name ; and Jere- 
miah, chapter xxvii, 7, expressly says, 'All na- 
tions shall serve him, (Nebuchadnezzar,) and his 
son, (Evil-merodach,) and his son's son, (Belshaz- 
zar,) until the very time of his land come that 
is, till the time in which the empire should be 
seized by Cyrus. Here there is no mention of 
Neriglissar nor Laborosoarchod / but as they 
were usurpers, they might have been purposely 
passed. But there remains one difficulty still : 



26 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HI5T0RY. 



Belshazzar is expressly called the son of Nebur 
chadnezzar. by tlie queen mother, (verse 11 :) 
'There is a man in thy kingdom, in whom is the 
spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of thy 
father light, and understanding, and wisdom, 
like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him ; 
whom the king Nebuchadnezzar thy father, 
the king, I say, thy father, made master of the 
magicians.' The solution of this difficulty is, 
that in Scripture the name of son is indifferently 
given to sons and grandsons, and even to great- 
grandsons. And perhaps the repetition in the 
above verse may imply this : ' The king, Nebu- 
chadnezzar, thy father, the king thy father.' 
The king thy father's father, and, consequently, 
thy grandfather. If it have not some such 
meaning as this, it must be considered an idle 
repetition. As to the two other Icings. JSTeriglissar 
and Lahorosoarchod. mentioned by Josejohus and 
Berosus, and bv whom the chronology is so 
much puzzled, they might have been some petty 
~kings. or viceroys, or satraps, who affected the 
kingdom, and produced disturbances, one for 
four years, and the other for nine months : and 
would, in consequence, not be acknowledged in 
the Babylonish chronology, nor by the sacred 
writers, any more than finally unsuccessful 



GENERAL ANALYSIS. 



27 



rebels are numbered among the kings of those 
nations which they have disturbed. I believe 
the only sovereigns we can acknowledge here are 
the following : 1. N'dbopolassar ; 2. Nebuchad- 
nezzar ; 3. Evil-merodach ; 4. Belshazzar ; and 
with this last the Chaldean empire ended." — See 
Clarke in loco. 

Chapter YI. With this chapter ends the his- 
torical part of the Book of Daniel. The captive 
Jews had now passed into the hands of new 
masters, and, as the result shows, the change did 
not bring any disadvantage to Daniel, or to the 
J ews at large. The value of Daniel's wisdom was 
fully appreciated by the conquerors of his former 
masters; and, under the new policy by which 
Babylon was to be governed, Daniel was left in 
the exercise of the large degree of authority and 
influence which he had enjoyed during the pre- 
ceding administrations. But his associates soon 
became jealous of his position and favour with 
the new monarch, and resolved upon his over- 
throw. Tet such was his purity of character, and 
his indomitable integrity in the exercise of his 
political functions, that no occasion was found 
upon which he could be accused to Darius. 
Hereupon a fruitless attempt was made to 



28 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



ensnare Daniel on account of his worshipping 
the living God. And, as is characteristic of our 
heavenly Father, when his name and worship 
are involved with the safety of his children, he 
came, in this case, to the rescue of both, covering 
his enemies and the enemies of his servants with 
dismay and ruin, and wholly defeating their ma- 
lign purposes toward the upright and devoted 
Daniel. This brief sketch is full of intense in- 
terest and pleasing instruction. We must, how- 
ever, leave it to be studied by the reader, as our 
object is only to give a summary of each chap- 
ter in this rapid analysis of the prophecy. 

Chapter TIL — We have now come to the 
prophetical part of this book. Such is the inti- 
mate relation of the remaining portion of Daniel, 
in its laws of exposition, and so influential is the 
doctrinal matter of the prophecies which it con- 
tains upon the general faith of the Church, in 
respect to several very important Biblical top- 
ics, that our progress must slacken, sufficiently 
at least to allow a careful and minute consider- 
ation of the evidences by which our future 
course of examination is to be directed. 

As the ensuing exposition is to be analytical 
and topical, rather than verbal and critical, we 



GENERAL ANALYSIS. 



29 



shall avail ourselves of this early opportunity to 
notice what we deem some fundamental errors, 
which appear to us to have controlled most of 
the extant expositions of this prophecy. A few 
of these errors we shall specify, leaving their 
full correction to the influence of the exposition 
of the several prophecies contained in this book. 

First, then, it has been common to consider 
the prophetical part of this book as containing 
one prophecy, delivered in a series of symbolical 
representations, the subject-matter of which is to 
be interpreted in historical and chronological 
consecution. It will be made to appear, in the 
ensuing investigation, that no such connexion 
exists; that the book, so far from being a unit 
in its scope, or in the real motive of the fore- 
shadowings here given of the future, is in 
design various, and in structure fragmentary. 
To be sure, each prophecy is in itself perfect; 
but there is no more natural or necessary re- 
lationship between the events predicted, than 
there is between the overthrow of Babylon by 
Cyrus and the fall of Egypt by Octavius. And 
this remark in relation to a diversity of object, 
with very little qualification, is equally true in 
relation to Nebuchadnezzar's dream, (chapter ii,) 
compared with Daniel's vision of the four beasts, 



30 DANIEL VERIFIED .HISTORY. 

(chapter vii,) as will be seen when the compari- 
son is made between the latter and the vision of 
the ram and the he-goat. At the appropriate 
place in this investigation, we shall lay before our 
readers a tabular view of the chronology of these 
several visions in their historical verifications. 

A second assumption, not less detrimental to 
a just exposition of the book in question, is, that 
the events foretold by these visions extend to 
the end of the world. It will be our aim to 
show, that no event in civil history later than 
the proper date of the fall of Rome, is predicted 
in the book of Daniel. It is true that, in rela- 
tion to the kingdom of the Messiah, language is 
employed to denote its continuance, without the 
use of any term of limitation ; or, in other words, 
such only as clearly shows that its influence will 
go on down to the end of time. This, however, 
is not a feature peculiar to the Danielitic proph- 
ecies concerning the Messiah's reign. It is com- 
mon to all the prophets, both of the Old and 
New Testaments, when referring to the destiny 
of Christ's kingdom. 

But, thirdly, partly as a necessary logical 
result from the admission of the preceding as- 
sumption, the terms and phrases employed in 
this prophecy to denote time, or periods of time, 



GENERAL ANALYSIS. 



SI 



have been explained to include an occult sense, 
or prophetical time, as it has been called. But a 
single fact, namely, that all the modes of reck- 
oning periods of time which are employed in this 
book were in use at the time when Daniel wrote, 
as they had also been from the days of Adam, 
goes far to cast doubt upon the popular theory, 
by which they have been expanded into thous- 
ands of years. 

A misapprehension of the meaning of the 
Holy Spirit, so fundamental as that here alluded 
to, leaves little room for wonder at the eccentric 
orbits which the imaginations of men have 
described in their attempts to embrace the his- 
torical matter of this prophecy. If these posi- 
tions can be maintained, it will follow that other 
errors, which, if subordinate, are still import- 
ant, have been committed in the common expo- 
sitions which have been made of the meaning 
of this prophecy. 

From the general course of the investigation 
now mapped out for ourselves, it will be appa- 
rent to all who have given a moderate share of 
attention to this subject, that the views here 
intimated will put us in an antagonistical posi- 
tion to most of the expositors who have written 
upon this subject. And it would be mere af- 



32 



DANIEL VERIFIED Ds HISTORY. 



fectation should we appear to be insensible to 
this state of things. Yet all which we have a 
right to ask in advance of the evidence which 
we may be able to present, is the candour of 
those who may favour us with a perusal of the 
following pages, and that they will not judge 
our opinions until they shall have weighed the 
reasons upon which they are based. 

We will now proceed to give a brief analysis 
of the prophetical part of this book. 

Chapter YII contains a symbolical represent- 
ation of four monarchies, which, in some sense, 
successively appeared and then disappeared. 
The symbol consists of four great leasts which 
Daniel saw rising up out of the sea. These 
beasts were " diverse one from another their 
diversity, evidently, was intended to show the 
leading characteristics of the powers which they 
respectively represented. 

It is worthy of particular attention, that very 
little is said or intimated respecting the first 
three beasts which the prophet saw ; whereas the 
history of the fourth is drawn out in lengthened 
detail, and in a style which shows that the scope 
of this revelation is to be found in the history of 
the fourth power symbolized, or rather to mark 



GENEBAL ANALYSIS. 



33 



the general period when God would subjugate 
civil power to the dominion of revealed truth 
in the earth. 

It has already been conceded that the plane 
of this vision runs over the same general 
history which was foreshadowed by Nebuchad- 
nezzar's dream of the great image. But it has 
been denied that they have a common scope. 
The true history of the then future, but now 
past, would be the same from whatever point it 
was seen, or however changeable the drapery 
under which it was represented. The grand 
difference in these revelations consists in this: 
the latter proceeds further down the stream of 
time than the former, in the description of par- 
ticular occurrences ; or rather, events are omitted 
in one that are described in the other. And it 
is these particular events which will furnish im- 
portant guides to us in a true exposition of the 
general signification of these symbols. 

The grand purpose of the revelation made to 
the Babylonian monarch, was to show him what 
disposition Providence would make of his own, 
and the kingdoms which were to succeed Baby- 
lon, (chapter ii, 29, 34, 45) ; and his vision was 
carried down to the period when the "God 
of heaven" would "set up a kingdom" upon 

3 



34 DANIEL VERIFIED EST HISTORY. 



the earth, the power and integrity of which 
should remain forever. Here, then, is the pur- 
pose, and here, too, is the end of the dream. 

After a period of about forty-eight years'* 
from the time when the king had his dream, 
Daniel saw the vision of the four beasts, con- 
tained in chapter vii. 

The civil event which constitutes the grand 
termination of this vision, is given in the 
following words, viz. : " I heheld even till the 
least (that is, the fourth beast) was slain, and 
his lody destroyed, and given to the turning 
jlarneP (Chapter vii, 11.) The consumption 
of the fourth beast, or, which is the same thing, 
the fall of the fourth monarchy, is the event 
whose chronology limits the vision. It was 
previous to the date of that event, that all the 
other occurrences foreshadowed by this vision 
took place. Nor, indeed, is there any reve- 
lation in it whose chronology goes below that 
date, other than the single subject of the triumph 
of God's kingdom, the perpetuity and achieve- 
ments of which are given forth in the most 
general language, and without the first item 
to mark its chronology below the date of the 
fall of the fourth empire. 

° Newton on the Prophecies, p. 201. 



GENEBAL ANALYSIS. 



35 



But what was the purpose, or grand motive, 
of this revelation to Daniel ? Was it to show 
him, as had been shown to his earthly sovereign, 
the fate of empires? Not as a primary object, 
certainly: but rather, as manifestly appears 
from the expositions of the symbols made to 
him, its grand design was to reveal to Daniel, 
and through him to the Church of God, a fuller 
prophetic view of that kingdom, and its action 
in the world, which had been partially and in- 
cidentally adumbrated by the significant sto^e 
which was seen in Nebuchadnezzar's dream. 
The lines of these visions, then, so far as they 
go together, blend, and separate only at the 
point where the plane of the one terminates, 
the other running on to a date some hundreds 
of years later. 

The object of the dream was to show the king 
what would take place in the civil world ; but 
the purpose of the vision (in chapter vii) was to 
show the prophet what was to be the fortune 
of that kingdom which God was to establish in 
the moral world. The king saw till the stone 
appeared in the world, and Daniel saw till the 
stone triumphed in the world. We have now 
said enough to indicate the general scope of 
these visions, and shall leave, for the present, 



36 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



the further consideration of their comparison 
with each other, and proceed with the general 
analysis of the remaining part of the book. 

Finishing the general description of the sym- 
bol with verse 7, Daniel proceeds to give a kind 
of sequel of the vision, in which the details of 
the fourth beast are specified. When the beast 
arose it had ten horns ; but while in the act of 
considering these, Daniel saw another horn com- 
ing up among them. (Verse 8.) 

Xow it is this horn, and its history, together 

with that portion of the history of the Xew 

Kingdom which synchronizes with the former, 

which for the most part fills up the remainder 

of the revelations made bv this remarkable vi- 

*/ 

sion. For it must not be forgotten, that it was 
this horn, and not the beast,* which spake great 
words against the Most High ; that should wear 
out the saints, and oppress them for a time, 
times, and the dividing of time. (See verses 
24, 25.) Xor should it be overlooked, that it 
was for the punishment of this same horn that 
"the judgment was set" which took away his 
dominion, and consumed it unto the end. Xow 
all this will be easily verified by noticing that the 
vision is contained in the first fourteen verses ; 
0 Chapter Tii, 8, 11 



GENERAL ANALYSIS. 



37 



the remainder of the chapter is devoted to an 
explanation of the symbols which were em- 
ployed as the medium of this revelation. Now, 
whether the eleventh horn was a regal person 
or a separate civil government, it was during 
the continuance of this horn that the " An- 
cient of Days came." overturning the power 
of the horn, and gave prevalence and as- 
cendency to the kingdom of the Most High. 
Thenceforth the saints took and possessed the 
kingdom. 

We will only venture to ask, in advance of 
any evidence upon the point, how, if the last 
horn is papacy, can it be shown that the saints 
have been subjected to its power even to the 
present time? and if the judgment by which the 
dominion of the horn was to be taken away and 
the new kingdom ushered in, was the final judg- 
ment, how, then, were " all people, nations, and 
languages" to " serve Him?" (Verse 14.) For 
nothing can be more manifest, we think, than 
that the language employed here is designed to 
show, that, after the subjugation of the wicked 
horn, ample opportunity would be afforded to 
work out the beneficent purposes for which the 
kingdom of the Most High was to be set up 
in the earth. 



88 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



Chapter VIII. Here we have another vision, 

which Daniel saw about three years after the 
date at which he saw the one contained in the 
preceding chapter. The imagery employed in 
this vision is materially different from all which 
has preceded it. The four metals in the dream, 
and the four leasts in the vision, were employ- 
ed to represent as many empires in immediate 
succession ; while this vision consists of but two 
beasts, and seems intended to exhibit coexistent 
powers in conflict And unless the tenth chap- 
ter forms an exception, the remainder of the 
book of Daniel is employed in an exposition of 
the matter couched under the general symbol 
of the ram and he-goat. 

The principal reason for suggesting that the 
tenth chapter may not refer to the same subject 
is, that it apparently bears a different date from 
the ninth and the eleventh, both of which are 
dated in the first year of Darius the Mede, while 
the tenth bears the date of the third year of 
Cyrus the Persian. 

Dr. A. Clarke says, that "the third year of 
Cyrus answers to the first year of Darius the 
Mede." If so, in what sense? If in a regal 
and historical sense it is the same, it does not 
follow that it is the same year in the history of 



GENERAL ANALYSIS. 



39 



the matter embraced in this prophecy. The 
event from which these dates are given, mani- 
festly was the taking of .Babylon. The first 
year of Darius was. then, the year of his tri- 
umph over Belshazzar. How, then, could the 
third year of Cyrus be the same as the first 
year of Darius? Now unless the third year of 
Cyrus is dated from some other event than the 
one from which the first year of Darius dates, 
(and this is yet to be shown,) then it denotes a 
period either two or five years later than the 
first year of Darius. If both refer to the con- 
quest of Babylon, then it may be two years or 
five years; if it relates to the time when Darius 
gave up his kingdom to Cyrus, then it would be 
but three years later. In either case, the date, 
as all must perceive, disconnects the matter of 
the tenth chapter from what precedes and what 
succeeds it. Our own impression in regard to 
this part of the book is, that it is not only out 
of its proper chronological arrangement, but that 
it is in itself imperfect ; that is, that it is the 
preface to a vision which by some means has 
been lost ; unless we accept as true (we do not 
allege it) the apocryphal claim of Esdras, (2 
Esd. xii, 11,) who pretends to give a vision of 
Daniel which was not explained to him. 



40 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



We will now only further remark, that this 
part of the prophetical book, beginning with 
the eighth chapter, -and thence to the end, has 
no connexion with any other part of it which 
precedes that chapter, either in persons, time, 
or motive. 

This remark will be fully illustrated, as will 
also the various periods of time employed in 
explaining to Daniel the meaning of the sym- 
bolical representations which he had seen, as 
contained in chapter viii. 

We have now given as full an analysis of the 
book as to us seems necessary, to prepare the 
way for a careful investigation of the several 
topics which are embraced in the prophetic an- 
nouncements which it contains. We shall now, 
therefore, proceed to a discussion of the subject- 
matter of the several visions, in the order in 
which they are found in the book. 



THE GREAT IMAGE. 



41 



CHAPTEE II. 

THE GREAT IMAGE. 

THE DREAM THE INTERPRETATION OF THE DREAM — THE FOUR 

KINGDOMS IDENTIFIED — THE FOURTH KINGDOM — THE KINGDOM 
OP THE STONE — THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE PROPHECY, ETC. 



DANIEL II. 



THE DREAM. 



31 Thou, O king, sawest, 
and behold a great image. 
This great image, whose 
brightness was excellent, 
stood before thee; and the 
form thereof was terrible. 



32 This image's head was 
of fine gold, his breast and 
his arms of silver, his belly 
and his thighs of brass, 



33 His legs of iron, his 
feet part of iron and part of 
clay. 



THE INTERPRETATION. 

3 7 Thou, O king, art a 
king of kings : for the God 
of heaven hath given thee 
a kingdom, power, and 
strength, and glory. 

38 And wheresoever the 
children of men dwell, the 
beasts of the field and the 
fowls of the heaven hath he 
given into thine hand, and 
hath made thee ruler over 
them all. Thou art this head 
of gold. 

39 And after thee shall 
arise another kingdom in- 
ferior to thee, and another 
third kingdom of brass, which 
shall bear rule over all the 
earth. 

40 And the fourth king- 
dom shall be strong as iron : 
forasmuch as iron breaketh 
in pieces and subdueth all 
things: and as iron that 
breaketh all these, shall it 
break in pieces and bruise. 



42 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



34 Thou sawest till that a 
stone was cut out without 
hands, which smote the image 
upon his feet that were of 
iron and clay, and brake 
them to pieces. 



35 Then was the iron, the 
clay, the brass, the silver, 
and the gold, broken to pieces 
together, and became like the 
chaff of the summer thresh- 
ing-floors; and the wind car- 
ried them away, that no place 
was found for them : and the 
stone that smote the image 
became a great mountain, 
and filled the whole earth. 

36 This is the dream ; and 
we will tell the interpretation 
thereof before the king. 



41 And whereas thou saw- 
est the feet and toes, part of 
potters' clay, and part of 
iron, the kingdom shall be 
divided ; but there shall be 
in it of the strength of the 
iron, forasmuch as thou sawest 
the iron mixed with miry clay. 

42 And as the toes of the 
feet were part of iron, and 
part of clay, so the kingdom 
shall be partly strong, and 
partly broken, 

43 And whereas thou saw- 
est iron mixed with miry 
clay, they shall mingle them- 
selves with the seed of men : 
but they shall not cleave one 
to another, even as iron is 
not mixed with clay. 

44 And in the days of 
these kings shall the God of 
heaven set up a kingdom, 
which shall never be de- 
stroyed: and the kingdom 
shall not be left to other 
people, but it shall break in 
pieces and consume all these 
kingdoms, and it shall stand 
forever. 

45 Forasmuch as thou 
sawest that the stone was cut 
out of the mountain without 
hands, and that it brake in 
pieces the iron, the brass, the 
clay, the silver, and the gold ; 
the great God hath made 
known to the king what shall 
come to pass hereafter : and 
the dream is certain, and the 
interpretation thereof sure. 



THE GKEAT IMAGE. 



43 



It has been admitted, in the general analysis of 
Daniel which has been given, that the historical 
matter adumbrated by this image is, to a great 
extent, identical with that foreshadowed by the 
vision of the four beasts which Daniel saw, the 
account of which is contained in the seventh 
chapter. It will scarcely be possible, therefore, 
to avoid a degree of repetition in the investiga- 
tion of these two topics. Yet by confining our- 
selves, as we shall endeavour to do, to those 
parts of the vision of the four beasts, whose 
matter does not belong to the purposes of the 
prognosticating image, we trust that we may be 
able to avoid tediousness, even though we dis- 
cuss these subjects separately. 

The symbol by which the prophetic indica- 
tions are given is as follows : 

" Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great 
image. This great image, whose brightness was 
excellent, stood before thee ; and the form there- 
of was terrible. 

" This image's head was of fine gold, his breast 
and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs 
of brass, 

"His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part 
of clay. 

"Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out with- 



44 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



out hands, which smote the image upon his feet 
that were of iron and clay, and brake them to 
pieces. 

" Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the 
silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, 
and became like the chaff of the summer 
threshing-floors ; and the wind carried them away, 
that no place was found for them : and the stone 
that smote the image became a great mountain, 
and filled the whole earth. 

"This is the dream.' 5 (Verses 31-36.) 

This is a compound symbol, consisting, first, 
of a gigantic human figure, in appearance con- 
structed of several different metals. The head 
was of fine gold, the breast and arms of silver, 
the belly of brass, the legs of iron, and its feet 
partly of iron and partly of clay. The second 
part of the symbol consisted of a stone which 
" was cut out without hands or, as the margin 
reads, " was not in hands." This stone smote 
the image, and broke it to pieces. 

THE MEANING OF THE SYMBOL. 

The grand question is, What did all this 
represent? The image itself, unquestionably, 



THE GREAT IMAGE. 



45 



was a symbol of civil power. ISTor is this use 
of the human figure peculiar to the dream of 
the Babylonian monarch. It has been used, 
both by historians and geographers, to represent 
the rise, progress, establishment, and decay of 
empires, as well as the relative situation and 
importance of the different parts of the govern- 
ment. "Thus Florus, in the ' preface 5 to his 
Roman history, represents the Romans under 
the form of a hu??ian body, in its different 
stages from infancy to old age." — Dr. A. 
Clarice. 

The image being constructed of different 
metals, it was thereby intended to represent, ac- 
cording to Daniel's own interpretation, (verses 
38-40,) as many different kingdoms. Whether 
there is any analogical sense to be attributed to 
the various metals used in the composition of 
this image, by which their comparative value 
should represent the comparative merit of these 
several powers, we shall not take it upon our- 
selves to decide. It is a sufficient justification 
for using them, to suppose that the variety of 
the composition would more distinctly impress 
the idea of severalty and succession upon the 
mind of Nebuchadnezzar. There is, however, 



46 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



something signified by the admixture of clay 
with the iron in the composition of the feet and 
toes } and it is so declared in verse 41, the ex- 
planation of which will, in due time, be given. 

THE FOUR KINGDOMS IDENTIFIED. 

The labour of identifying the four kingdoms 
represented by the various metals, is made com- 
paratively easy by Daniel's exposition of the 
dream. In verse 38, he says, addressing the 
king, "Thou art this head of gold" which may 
be easily understood by slightly paraphrasing the 
expression, thus: Thou art the representative 
of the golden empire. For it is w r orthy of 
notice that Isaiah, in a figure of speech, calls 
Babylon "The golden city;"* and the prophet 
Jeremiah, foreseeing the overthrow of Babylon, 
and speaking of it as already fallen, says, it 
"hath been a golden cup."f 

The datum, then, being fixed by the prophet 
himself, we may unhesitatingly proceed in our 
inquiries respecting the identity of the three 
succeeding kingdoms, which were to rise. Baby- 
lon is, then, the first of the four powers repre- 
sented in the dream. 

° Isaiah xiv, 4 f Jer. li, 7. 



THE GEEAT IMAGE. 



47 



This empire, founded by Niinrod A. M. 1771, 
B. C. 2233, ended with the death of Belshazzar, 

A. M. 3466, B. C. 538, having lasted nearly 
seventeen hundred years. In the time of Nebu- 
chadnezzar it extended over Chaldea, Assyria^ 
Arabia, Syria, and Palestine. 

THE SECOND KINGDOM. 

" And after thee shall arise another kingdom 
inferior to thee." (Yerse 39.) "We have in chap- 
ter v, verses 28 and 31, explicit evidence to iden- 
tify the kingdom designated by the silver arms 
and breast "Peres; thy kingdom is divided, 
and given to the Medes and Persians. . . * \ 
And Darius the Median took the kingdom, being 
about three-score and two years old." 

The Medo-Persian, which was the second 
kingdom, came into the plane of the prophetic 
vision at the period when the head of gold 
passed out, in the year B. C. 538. This 
empire, about two years after the fall of Chal- 
dea, was consolidated under Cyrus, and lasted 
about two hundred years ; that is, till the year 

B. C. 331, when it was swallowed up in the 
dominions of Alexander the Great. The his- 
tory of these revolutions is so familiar to most 



48 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

readers that we need not dwell here; espe- 
cially as the main points will appear in the 
general discussion. 

THE THIRD KINGDOM. 

"And another [a] third kingdom of brass, 
which shall bear ride over all the earth," (Yerse 
39.) What, then, is the brazen kingdom ? We 
shall be aided in answering this question if we 
refer to chapter xi, verses 2 and 3, in which it 
is said, " Behold, there shall stand up yet three 
kings in Persia ; and the fourth shall be far rich- 
er than they all ; and by his strength through 
his riches he shall stir up ail against the realm 
of Grecia. And a mighty king shall stand up, 
that shall rule with great dominion, and do ac- 
cording to his will." Although this sketch is 
given in explanation of another vision, it is 
equally evidence in point in settling the question 
now under consideration. The king who was 
reigning in Persia at the time alluded to (the 
first year of Darius, B. C. 534) was Cyrus. The 
three kings who successively sat upon his throne 
were, "1. Camhyses, the son of Cyrus. 2. Smer- 
dis, the Magian ; and, 3. Darius, the son of Hys- 
taspes." The fourth, who was to be distinguished 



THE GREAT IMAGE. 



49 



for his riches, "was Xerxes, the son of Darius, 
of whom Justin says: 'He had so great an 
abundance of riches in his kingdom, that al- 
though rivers were dried up by his numerous 
armies, yet his wealth remained unexhausted. 5 " 
Why the remainder of the Persian calendar is 
passed over we are not able to say. That there 
is a lapse, which reaches down to the days of 
Alexander, is certainly true. 

Such, however, would be the notoriety of the 
fourth Persian king, that it would serve as a kind 
of telegraphic point, from which to extend the 
prophetic vision of Daniel to the time when the 
mighty king should stand up and sack the silver 
kingdom. As the vision was designed to reach 
that period in which Persia should fail, and to 
point out the agent by which it would be over- 
thrown, any ellipsis in history would be admis- 
sible which would not be in conflict with the 
grand design aimed at. 

It is, however, a point settled by history, that 

the kingdom which succeeded Medo-Persia 

was the Macedonian or Greek empire, founded 

by Alexander the Great. Hence it has not been 

doubted, so far as we know, that the mighty king 

was this Grecian conqueror. Indeed, it is said in 

1 Mac. i, 1, that "Alexander, son of Philip the 
4 



50 



DANIEL VERIFIED EST HISTORY. 



Macedonian/' overthrew "Darius, king of the 
Persians and Medes," and " that he reigned in 
his stead." 

"What is said in the text about this mighty 
king's bearing " rule over all the earth," must be 
understood with some degree of limitation, for 
neither Rome, nor China, which was even a 
much older government than Rome, was includ- 
ed in Alexander's kingdom. The territorial 
limits of his empire lay between the river Gan- 
ges and the Adriatic Sea. 

THE FOURTH KINGDOM. 

66 And the fourth kingdom shall he strong as 
iron" (Verse 40.) There is no proof, either in 
the explanation of the dream, or in the vision of 
the four beasts, which goes directly to identify 
the fourth kingdom. The first three kingdoms, 
we have seen, are identified by their proper 
historical names in the book of Daniel. These 
three monarchies fill a very large space in an- 
cient history; and it seems likely that they were 
brought into the plane of the prophetic vision 
chiefly because their history blends, in a great 
degree, with that of the chosen people of God ; 
and so far as we are able to judge, governments 



THE GREAT IMAGE. 



51 



which never directly or indirectly influenced 
the social condition of the Hebrews, never 
appear in the exhibitions of the great diorama 
of prophecy. Such we believe to be the fact in 
relation to China, although its history through- 
out is synchronical with that of the Jews, at least 
so long as the latter possessed a governmental 
identity. 

Notwithstanding there is an absence of evi- 
dence upon the point in the text, the opinion that 
Rome is the kingdom symbolized by the " iron 
legs," is well supported. For, first, there is no 
intimation that the geography of the scene is 
shifted. The preceding kingdoms, which are 
clearly identified, are seen in their ascendency 
within the same territorial limits. It was not the 
design of the dream to exhibit a succession of 
countries, but a succession of regal powers in the 
same country. The conclusion is, then, as just 
as it is natural, that the fourth kingdom indi- 
cated is that one which next had the ascendency 
within the geographical limits where the scene 
is laid, and with which the picture of the trials 
and fortunes of the Jews is finally shaded. 
That power, every one knows, was the Eoman 
monarchy. 

Besides, Eome was emphatically an iron king- 



52 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



dom. It concentrated the elements of civil 
power in a manner in which they had not be- 
fore been illustrated. It literally and most em- 
phatically "broke in pieces and bruised" the 
kingdoms which had preceded it ; but in turn 
was as signally broken by a " stone 99 which was 
not in hands, as its own rapid and incomparable 
ascendency was notorious. But as it w r ill not be 
denied that the iron kingdom is Rome, we need 
not stop to argue the point. We shall, therefore, 
proceed to an investigation of the details given 
forth in the history of the fourth kingdom. 

And upon this subject our examination must 
be more thorough, and our explanations more 
minute. By a cursory glance at the text, it will 
be seen that, while the first three kingdoms are 
set forth with only general features of character 
and identity, the fourth is drawn with such 
various specific shades, as at once to suggest 
that some great moral lesson lies concealed be- 
neath these adumbrating hieroglyphics. 

THE LIMITS OF THE DREAM. 

It w r ill be essential to an intelligent view of 
the prophetic meaning of this dream, that we 
fix the limits of the chronological period which 



THE GREAT MAGE. 



53 



contains the historical matter foreshadowed by 
it. For certainly it had limits, and those lim- 
its must be determined by evidence contained 
in the text. And although the question is not 
settled by the statement of numerical figures, 
yet we think it can be resolved by a method 
scarcely less positive or obvious. There cer- 
tainly can be no question respecting the date 
at which the vision opens, unless it were 
assumed that it was intended that the dream 
should exert a reflex influence; for it is said, 
(verse 8,) " Thou art this head of gold." If, then, 
we can determine the date of the dream, we 
shall decide the period at which the vision com- 
mences. The dream occurred (verse 1) in the 
second year of Nebuchadnezzar. We shall not 
attempt to settle the questions of chronology in 
which the second year of Nebuchadnezzar is 
involved by critics. It will answer all practical 
purposes to assume the year B. C. 603 as the 
date of the dream. 

But when did the vision end ? or, more prop- 
erly, What is the event upon which it termi 
nates ? This question is answered in verse 34, in 
which it is said, " Thou sawest till that a stone 
was cut out without hands, which smote the 
image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, 



54 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



and brake them to pieces." The breaking up 
of the fourth kingdom is, then, the event which 
constitutes the terminus ad quern, or ending of 
the scene. The final historical limit of the vis- 
ion will be determined by finding the date 
of the fall of Home. When did this hap- 
pen ? It may be a little difficult to decide upon 
the specific elate of this occurrence, as there is 
not a uniform opinion among historians re- 
specting the precise time when Rome fell. So 
if the final division of the empire, which took 
place upon the death of Theodosius, A. D. 395, 
does not seem to be late enough to correspond to 
the indication of the prophecy, then you may go 
down to the time of the final extinction of the 
Western Empire, which, according to Gibbon, 
took place A. D. 476, or A. D. 479. For our- 
selves, we prefer the former date, as it is very 
plainly intimated in verse 43, that the limitation 
of the vision in the dream is marked by a sepa- 
ration, resulting from the mutual repugnancy of 
the iron and clay. But we will take the latest 
date for the period at which the vision termi- 
nates, and then, from B. C. 603 to A. D. 479, 
we have a period of 1082 years, as the whole 
limit over which the dream of Nebuchadnezzar 
is spread, and within which the prophetical 



THE GREAT IMAGE. 



55 



matter foreshadowed by it is to be found in 
historical verification. 

If what has now been said respecting the 
power symbolized by the iron legs, and the final 
chronological limit to which the vision extends, 
be true, we certainly are approximating evi- 
dence, by which we shall be essentially aided in 
attaining a satisfactory opinion respecting the 
meaning of this important prophecy. The field 
of inquiry, both in its geographical and chro- 
nological limits, is hereby marked out. The 
country or 'kingdom is Rome, and Rome is the 
successor of Greece, in that sense in which 
Greece was the successor of Medo-Persia. The 
time is that period which elapsed from B. 0. 
603 to A. D. 479. 

These two points — the place and the time 
embraced by this dream — are so essential to a 
full understanding of the true meaning of this 
prophecy, that we feel justified in detaining 
the reader's attention for a moment longer, 
and in anticipating a single question, to be 
examined in the discussion of the vision of 
the four beasts. We do this in order to cor- 
roborate the view just given of what we be- 
lieve to be the true history foreshown in the 



56 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



dream. When Daniel is relating the vision 
which he saw, he says, (chap, vii, 11,) "I beheld 
till the [fourth] beast was slain, and his body 
destroyed, and given to the burning flame." 
This beast symbolized the same power which is 
designated by the legs of iron in the dream of 
Nebuchadnezzar. If there could be any reason- 
able doubt that the repulsion of clay and iron 
was intended to foreshadow the dissolution of 
the Roman Empire, it must yield to the force 
of the evidence which is given in the language 
now quoted from chapter vii ; in which, by the 
terms employed, as if to make the impression 
deep and cumulative, the idea of destruction 
by fire is intimated. This, it seems to us, makes 
it certain, that the breaking up of Rome is the 
event which exhibits the historical bound in 
the plane of the vision, and consequently, by 
a logical necessity, determines the chronology 
of the prophecy. 

THE KINGDOM OF THE STONE. 

Secondly. But there is another mode of settling 
this vital question, which relates to the period 
at which the vision ends. It is by finding the 
history of the stone, which, in part, is parallel 



THE GREAT IMAGE. 



57 



with the history of the legs of iron. The stone, 
it will be remembered, comes into view at that 
period in the history of the fourth kingdom 
when the admixture of clay with iron appears 
in the feet ; or, in other words, its appearance 
and action synchronize with the later history of 
the Roman Empire. There is, then, so intimate 
a relation in the history delineated in these two 
parts of the symbolical imagery in the dream, 
that it becomes indispensably necessary that we 
settle the meaning and application of this latter 
feature of the hieroglyphical delineation. It is 
important that we answer the two following 
questions : 

1. What did the stone denote? and, 

2. When did the stone smite the image ? 

In relation to the first of these questions, it 
may be stated, that there are no reasonable 
grounds to doubt that the stone was the symbol 
of that kingdom which the " God of heaven " 
would "set up," which kingdom was to succeed 
the four preceding ones, and stand forever. That 
which, in its incipient state, was a stone, in the 
progress of its growth, in action and influence, 
becomes a mountain, and fills the whole earth. 
The stone is employed to denote the agency 
itself; and the metaphor of a mountain, to 



58 DANIEL VERIFIED EST HISTORY. 

shadow forth the increase and consummation 
of moral influence in the earth. 

This prophet was not the first, nor was he 
the last, of the sacred writers, who used the 
metaphor of a stone to denote the Christian 
system, as it has been established by Jesus 
Christ. It is in common use in prophetic lan- 
guage, both in prose and poetry, where the mat- 
ter of the prediction is undeniably Messianic. 
Thus it is in Psa. cxviii, 22: "The stone which 
the builders refused is become the head stone 
of the corner." This passage is quoted, and ap- 
plied to Christ as the Saviour, by St. Peter, in 
his first epistle, second chapter, verses 4-10, in 
the following words : 

"To whom coming, as unto a living stone, 
disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, 

and precious "Wherefore also it is 

contained in the Scripture, (Isa. xxviii, 16,) 
Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner-stone, elect, 
precious: and he that belie veth on him shall 
not be confounded. Unto you therefore which 
believe, he is precious ; but unto them which 
be disobedient, the stone which the builders 
disallowed, the same is made the head of the 
corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock 
of offence, even to them which stumble at the 



THE GREAT IMAGE. 



59 



word, being disobedient : whereunto also they 
were appointed. But ye are a chosen genera- 
tion, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar 
people ; that ye should show forth the praises of 
him who hath called you out of darkness into his 
marvellous light : which in time past were not a 
people, but are now the people of God: which 
had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained 
mercy." See also Eom. ix, 32, 33. 

These quotations not only settle the applica- 
tion of the metaphor of a stone in Scripture use, 
but they also exhibit the early filling up of the 
outline or programme which was drawn by an 
earlier prophet, shadowing forth the progress 
of the stone to the vastness of a mountain, which 
should, in the end, overtop all other accumula- 
tions upon the face of the earth. 

"And it shall come to pass in the last days, 
that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be 
established in the top of the mountains, and it 
shall be exalted above the hills ; and all nations 
shall flow unto it." (Isa. ii, 2.) 

Now, we think it is morally certain that Isa- 
iah's "mountain of the Lord" and Daniel's 
" great mountain," which " filled the whole 
earth," are identical, and that both are realized 
in the Gospel, and the religious community 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



built upon it, which, in common language, we 
denominate the Church. It remains, then, only 
to identify the stone seen in the dream, with the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ, to open our way to an 
exhibition of the synchronical relations of the 
fourth kingdom with the kingdom which the 
God of heaven would set up: and this will 
amount to a demonstration itself. We shall 
begin with quoting 

Matt, xxi, 42-45 : " J esus saith unto them, 
Did ye never read in the Scriptures, The stone 
which the builders rejected, the same is become 
the head of the corner : this is the Lord's doing, 
and it is marvellous in our eyes? Therefore 
say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be 
taken from you, and given to a nation bringing 
forth the fruits thereof. And whosoever shall 
fall on this stone shall be broken : but on whom- 
soever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder." 

1. The symbol of a stone is here applied to 
that which was taken from the Jews and given 
to the Gentiles. 

2. That which was transferred from the former 
to the latter is called the "kingdom of GodP 

If now we turn to Acts xiii, 46, we shall 
find a plain and full account of what is intended 
by the figurative language of the Saviour above 



THE GEEAT IMAGE. 



61 



quoted. "Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, 
and said, It was necessary that the word of God 
should first have been spoken to you : but seeing 
ye put it from you, and judge yourselves un- 
worthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the 
Gentiles." 

Let the reader mark the correspondence in 
the application of the several terms employed 
in these quotations. And though they are terms 
and phrases whose lexicographical meaning is 
as diverse as possible, yet, by tracing the rela- 
tion in these passages, it will be seen that in 
doctrinal import there is but a single idea per- 
vading them. 

The everlasting life is the word of God — 
The word of God is the kingdom of God — The 
kingdom of God is the stone which was to be 
laid in Zion. Thus, by going up from the his- 
torical verification of ancient prophecy to the 
prophecy itself, we are able to decide with pos- 
itive certainty upon the moral signification of 
the symbols which are almost constantly used as 
a medium of prophetic announcement in relation 
to this subject. 

But let us proceed from the verbal agreement 
of this subject, to consider the historical charac- 
teristics of this kingdom of the "stone." In the 



62 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



dream it was seen that the stone would smite the 
feet of the image, and break them to pieces. It 
follows, then, as a necessary result, that the whole 
image shall disappear, when that power into 
which all the others are resolved shall be estab- 
lished. (See verses 34, 35.) This action of the 
stone is explained in verse 44 thus: " And in the 
days of these kings shall the God of heaven set 
up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: 
and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, 
but it shall break in pieces and consume all 
these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.'' 

Before attempting to decide in what sense the 
collision of the stone with the image is to be ex- 
plained, or what is the precise sense in which 
the image was reduced to chaffs we wish the 
reader to compare this description with what is 
said of the " kingdom of God " in Matt, xxi, 44. 

" And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall 
be broken : but on whomsoever it shall fall, it 
will grind him to powDEE.' 5 All will see that 
the characteristics of the stone in Daniel are 
given, by the Saviour, to that kingdom which 
he came to establish. T\ T e cannot better ex- 
hibit the identity of sense and application in 
these passages than by quoting from Mr. "Wat- 
son's note upon the latter text. 



THE GREAT DIAGE. 



63 



"The allusion here/' he says, "does not appear 
to be to one method of stoning, which Maimon- 
ides says was practised among the Jews, that is, 
first casting down from a precipice upon the 
rock below, which, if not fatal, was followed by 
rolling a large stone down upon the criminal; 
which is somewhat far-fetched, and, indeed, was 
not the common mode of inflicting that punish- 
ment. It rather arises out of the metaphor of 
the stone rejected by the builders, whether con- 
sidered as a foundation or the top stone of the 
corner. As the one represented our Lord's hu- 
miliation and sufferings, the only foundation of 
saving trust, the other was an emblem of the 
glory and majesty of his exaltation to the right 
hand of God. In the former, he was £ a stone of 
stumbling and a rock of offence ; ' first, to all 
Jews who rejected a suffering Messiah, and, by 
consequence, his sacrificial death ; and then, to 
all others who equally spurned Christ crucified 
as the only ground of their hope of salvation. 
Thus they were broken * so wounded as to sustain 
great injury; yet not but that they might repent 
and find mercy ; for their case is not represented 
as absolutely fatal, until the stone at the head of 
the corner should fall upon them. This signifies 
a judicial wielding of Christ's power and su- 



64 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



preme authority against all such as rejected him, 
though after much long-suffering and delay. 
With respect to the Jews as a nation, this took 
place after the Gospel, in its perfected form, 
with all the additional attestations of Christ's 
resurrection and ascension, and the effusion of 
the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, had been for 
many years proclaimed among them, and been 
pressed upon their acceptance. But they contin- 
ued io fall upon, or stumble at, the foundation, 
and still more grievously to wound and injure 
themselves, until at last Christ turned against 
them the weight of his power as the Judge, and 
utterly destroyed their city and nation. Thus 
also it shall be with every individual [and with 
nations] who reject Christ as a Saviour." For 
" 1 on whomsoever this stone shall fall, it will 
grind him to powder.' Ivvd/Aadat and /anuav 
are of different degrees of force ; the former 
signifies to bruise; the latter, to disperse, as 
chaff, from alkuoc. a winnowing-fan ; and hence 
is used figuratively for utter destruction, or a 
dashing in pieces." 

If Mf. Watson has hit upon the true sense of 
the figure in the text, both in its allusion and its 
application, and as we have already seen that it 
is a parallel of that in Daniel, the exposition of 



THE GREAT IMAGE. 



65 



the latter, in history, will be comparatively easy 
and perfectly satisfactory. The smiting of the 
image denotes that agency of divine Providence, 
by which the kingdom of God should gain 
ascendency in the world, but especially that the 
growth of the stone should be facilitated by re- 
laxing the power of heathen monarchies. And 
although we may not be able to comprehend the 
modus operandi of divine Providence in the 
overthrow of the fourth empire, yet the fact is 
notorious that, as the power of Rome declined, 
the influence of the stone was elevated. Indeed, 
it is within a comparatively short time that the 
feet were broken, and the fourth kingdom crushed 
into the dust, and the fragments of it scattered 
to the winds. 

A very few citations more from the New Test- 
ament will suffice to identify the kingdom of 
prophecy with the kingdom of history. In Mark 
ix, 1, it is written: "And he said unto them, 
Verily I say unto you, That there be some of 
them that stand here, which shall not taste 
of death, till they have seen the kingdom of 
God come with power. 5 ' And again, in Luke 
xvii, 21, it is said: " Behold, the kingdom of 
God is within,' 9 or in the midst of " you." 

Here, then, is incontestable proof that "the 



66 DANIEL VERIFIED EST HISTORY. 

kingdom of God " is the dispensation of Gospel 
grace. And the evidence from the Scriptures 
previously cited is so direct and full, that it 
seems unnecessary to multiply these parallels. 
Having answered the question which relates to 
the significancy of the stone, we shall now pro- 
ceed to the 

Second, Which concerns the time of its de- 
velopment. And, happily for us, we have a 
true, written history of the Gospel, in which is 
furnished sufficient evidence upon this latter in- 
quiry. The time of the appearing of the stone is 
settled, then, by its own history. But this does 
not determine the precise period when it came 
in collision with the image. Indeed, the text 
does not settle this question. It does, however, 
afford some general indications by which we 
may be guided. And of this nature is the fact 
that it was upon the feet and toes, and not upon 
the iron legs, that the blow was given by which 
the image was prostrated. Much doubt would 
have rested upon the subject, had we been only 
informed, in general terms, that the stone smote 
the image. We should, in that case, have been 
obliged to go over the whole history adum- 
brated by it, to find the synchronism of this gen- 
eral subject. But as the case stands, we are 



THE GREAT IMAGE. 



67 



enabled to say, positively, that the stone did 
not strike upon either the golden head, the silver 
breast and arms, the brazen belly and thighs, 
or upon the legs of iron. It "smote the image 
upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and 
broke them to pieces." The general period, 
then, in which we are to look for the contact 
of the stone with the feet, runs from that 
point in the history of the fourth power, in 
which the stone actually appears in the plane 
of the vision, onward to the time when the 
fourth power is finally prostrated. Indeed, 
the indications are more specific than this. 
It is near the termination of the history of the 
image; for this ensues upon the blow from the 
stone. The image having been broken and 
scattered, as "the chaff of the summer thresh- 
ing-floors," it disappears from the vision of the 
prophet, and the scene is filled up with the 
stone, which rolls on to its mountain-ascendency 
in the earth. 

The history of Eome, then, at the period now 
indicated, becomes positive testimony upon the 
point under investigation. At whatever time 
Eome fell, that is the historical and chronolog- 
ical limitation of the vision of the dream. 

The point now under consideration is so ma- 



68 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

terial to a just and comprehensive view of the 
general meaning of the prophecy, that it may 
be proper to dwell upon it a moment longer. 
The stone smote the image upon the feet, which 
were a mixture of iron and clay. Now the iron 
age of Rome was that portion of her history 
which lies between the expulsion of Tarquin 
the Proud, A. C. 509, and the usurpation of 
Julius Caesar, which occurred a little before 
the coming of Christ. This was the period of 
her powei\ for it was the period of her liberty. 
And although it has been common with histo- 
rians to date the decline of Rome from the days 
of Commodus, A. D. 180, still the prophetic fore- 
sight of her internal state, given forth in the 
text of Daniel, not only suggests the fact, but 
clearly justifies the declaration, that her organic 
integrity was broken at a period considerably 
earlier. The iron strength of the kingdom began 
to yield, and the clayey manifestations began 
to appear, from the day that the crown and im- 
perial purple were looked upon in the nation 
with an ambitious eye. Symptoms of decline 
having begun to be visible before the stone 
fell upon the feet of the image, it did not re- 
quire the ponderous mountain in order to break 
it. Hence, while the stone was yet a stone, it 



THE GREAT IMAGE. 



69 



was able to gain the ascendency, even where 
iron had ruled. 

But we will dwell upon these points no 
longer, especially as some of them must of 
necessity appear again in the course of our 
general exposition. Enough, we think, has 
now been said to make it obvious to all, that 
our exposition of the general limitation of the 
dream, is fully corroborated by the specific 
history of the stone, and its action upon the 
image. For when it is remembered that the 
entire period oyer which the matter of the 
yision of the dream is spread, cannot exceed 
the period of 1082 years, and that more than 
600 of these years had passed away before the 
adyent of Jesus Christ, the conclusion seems 
inevitable, that the whole of the civil history 
designed to be represented by this dream is 
included in the true history of Rome, the last 
of the powers designated. And especially does 
this inference force itself upon us, as it was 
within the chronology of the history now cited 
that Christ made his advent into our world, and 
as it was during the early history of Christian- 
ity that Rome fell, and crumbled into dust, or 
"was driven away with the wind and scattered.' 5 

It is not necessary for us to pursue these de- 



70 



DANIEL VERIFIED IX HISTORY. 



tails any further. The material points in the 

prophetic scene have been sufficiently dwelt 
upon to enable an unbiased mind to judge 
impartially of the brief synthetical view of this 
subject, which will now be presented in a few 
general theses, as follows: 

First. That the image in the dream, so far as it 
indicated what was in the future, was employed 
to represent such civil affairs as belonged to the 
true history of the several powers which were 
symbolized respectively by the various metals 
employed in the composition of the image. 
These kingdoms, we have seen, were Babylon, 
Medo-Persia, Greece, and Eome. 

Secondly. There being no transition in the 
symbolical delineation, and none in the pro- 
phetical interpretation of the dream, it follows 
that the historical verification of this whole 
subject is to be looked for within the recorded 
transactions and destinies of the four kingdoms 
specified. 

Thirdly. The image did not foreshadow any- 
thing beyond the period at which the fourth 
kingdom was dissolved. 

Fourthly. Whatever of a moral, or of an 
ecclesiastical nature is fore-announced by the 
dream, is wholly couched under the symbol 



THE GREAT IMAGE. 



71 



of the stone, which, we have shown, means the 
Gospel dispensation. 

Fifthly. Except in a very general sense, as re- 
lating to the perpetuity and final triumph of the 
Messiah's kingdom, even the matter of this latter 
symbol is confined within the chronology which 
limits the history of the fourth empire. 

Believing that adequate evidence to support 
these several points has been furnished in the 
general analysis above given, we shall devote 
the remaining space allotted to the discussion 
of this part of our general subject, to the con- 
sideration of some objections which may, possi- 
bly, be urged against the opinions now set forth. 

I. It may be said, that to confine the matter 
of this prophecy w ithin limits so prescribed* and 
to subjects of a civil nature alone, gives to the 
prophecy a character so secular, as to render 
it unworthy of the divine wisdom. To this 
we reply, 

First. That many prophecies in the Old Test- 
ament are undeniably of this character. 

Such, for example, is the prophecy concerning 
Ishmael. See Gen. xvi, 12; xvii, 20. Indeed, 
the subject-matter is secular in those predictions 
which affected Moab, Nineveh, Babylon, Tyre, 



72 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



Edoin, and Egypt. Even many predictions 
which concerned the affairs of the Jews them- 
selves, did not relate to moral subjects, only 
as they were, by the peculiar form of the Jew- 
ish government, involved in the social and civil 
arrangements of the state. Isow, as it will be 
admitted that there are many predictions in the 
Old Testament Scriptures, which wholly relate 
to the civil history of the nations which they 
respectively concerned, it will follow, that, be- 
fore the objection we are considering can have 
any weight against the interpretation we have 
given to this vision, it must be shown that this 
particular prophecy cannot be classified with 
those to which we have alluded. 

But if there is any unexplained anomaly 
about the image — any mystical combination or 
action which the interpretation does not clearly 
resolve — in that case there are reasons why we 
ought to pause until we obtain an insight into the 
masked design. Unfortunately for the objection, 
however, the shadowy forms of the dream take 
on, in the perspicuous language of the interpreta- 
tion, all the essential attributes of realities, which 
are at once seen coalescing with their proper his- 
torical identifications, in a manner so complete as 
to leave no room for doubt or conjecture. The 



THE GEEAT DIAGE. 



73 



only anomalous feature of the image, is the ad- 
mixture of clay with iron. The palpable con- 
trariety of these substances at once shows, that 
this resort in completing the structure of the 
image, prognosticates an idea, variant, some- 
what, from the general design of the symbol. 
TThat the moral idea intended by this admixture 
is, has already been shown from the text itself. 
But, 

Secondly. "We imagine that this objection is 
in part founded in a misconception of the objects 
and structure of prophecy in general. For the 
notion has been cherished, that the book of 
prophecy gives forth a kind of panoramic view 
of the history of the whole world, if not in 
primary sketches, yet by a species of occult im- 
plication. 

The examples which have been cited to show 
that the subject-matter of prophecy is often sec- 
ular in its nature, are also equally in point to 
prove, that in historical relation the matter of 
them, in many instances, is absolutely local 
and fixed in its chronological bounds. We 
mean to be understood as saying, that there is 
no more affinity of sense, or relation, or depend- 
ence between many of the prophecies of the 
Bible, than there is between the most discon- 



74 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



nected and fragmentary items of fact which are 
already entered, or shall hereafter be recorded 
upon the pages of history. 

The prevailing fact is, that each prophecy is 
complete in itself ; that one prophecy is not a 
sequel to the announcement of some preceding 
one — a species of codicil without which the an- 
tecedent prophecy cannot be understood. If 
there are exceptions to this, they are exceptions 
to the rule, and they are to be treated as excep- 
tions. Now our exposition being founded in the 
general rule, the objection to it, being grounded 
upon an exception, can have no force against 
us, until it shall be shown that the example in 
question belongs to the class excepted from the 
general rule. 

As respects that implication of prophecy by 
which it is sought to expand its meaning so as 
to take in the whole future history of the world, 
we beg leave to say, that it is a gratuitous as 
well as wholesale assumption. And it is one 
which we believe to be false in fact, and which, 
if yielded to in the study and exegesis of proph- 
ecy, must end in error, both in doctrine and 
logic. For, in the first place, there is not, so 
far as we know, any proof that the same w r ords, 
in the same collocation, contain more than 



THE GREAT IMAGE. 



75 



one meaning. It is true, however, that the 
prevailing idea in the discourse is not always 
in perfect agreement with the lexicographical 
signification of the words employed. In such 
cases we are almost entirely dependent upon 
the scope of the subject, or the context of the 
discourse, or both, to determine the meaning of 
the words in that particular case. This remark 
is specially important in relation to the teach- 
ings of Jesus Christ. His doctrines were so 
transcendently spiritual, that the human vocabu- 
lary afforded no just medium for their com- 
munication. Had the Saviour invented words 
to express the ideas which he wished to convey, 
then this disability would have attended his ut- 
terings, namely, that no one would, or could 
have comprehended his meaning. Now it being 
a fact that he employed words whose significa- 
tion had been settled by conventional use, it 
follows that more is often conveyed by the Sa- 
viour when using such words, than can be ex- 
pressed by their lexicographical power. If this 
is the doulle sense claimed, why then it is unde- 
niably true, that the Scriptures in many in- 
stances have a twofold sense. Thus, we are 
twice horn, that is, we have been "brought into 
life, and at a subsequent period have been 



76 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



changed in the principles of our moral conduct. 
But will it be said by a sober and reflecting 
man, that our Saviour attached more than one 
meaning to the words employed in his address 
to Xicodenius, when instructing him in the fun- 
damental doctrines of the Gospel? "We think 
not. It is obvious, we are sure, that there is 
but a single prevailing meaning to be ascribed 
to the language which Christ employed on that 
occasion. And we think this to be a good 
illustration of the use of language throughout 
the Bible, in which, as in all other books and 
discourses, there is but a single sense contained 
in the words. 

But if it shall yet be held, that, besides the 
verbal sense and the mora! signification of the 
words of Scripture, there is yet another mean- 
ing, differing from both, we ask, how is this to 
be shown? and how is that other meaning to be 
made out ? Let us select an example, in order 
to exhibit the logical force of these questions. 
Take Rev. xvii, 5: "And upon her forehead 
was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLOX 
THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HAR- 
LOTS AND ABOMINATIONS. OF THE 
EARTH/' The allusion, in this case, must 
have been to that Babylon built by Xim- 



THE GREAT IMAGE. 



77 



rod, and which subsequently became the seat 
of the Chaldean Empire. The word Babylon 
means the same as Babel, confusion, or mix- 
ture. This is its lexicographical sense. In its 
historical signification it means an ancient 
city, the seat of an empire, which at one pe- 
riod was called by that name. Now the Rev- 
elator John could not mean the Babylon of 
history, because that had been destroyed — had 
ceased to exist. He quotes the name, possi- 
bly, because something in the history of that 
city would illustrate some feature in the subject 
which he was now uttering, and thereby aid the 
mind of his readers in comprehending the full 
importance of the disclosure which he was then 
making of the future. It will now be perfectly 
easy to see how the Babylon of history passes 
into an emblematical Babylon, and becomes a 
symbol of some new idea, or an idea which has 
no necessary relation to the object from which 
the symbol is taken. Whatever it is, then, to 
which the symbolical Babylon relates — the thing 
or the subject to which it is applied— that em- 
bodies what we intend by the phrase moral sig- 
nification. When, therefore, we have sufficient 
evidence to determine what that was to which 
the Eevelator referred, and to which he applied 



78 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

the phrase " Babylon the Great," we then 
have ascertained the one meaning of the text. 
Now, whoever will examine the chapter from 
which the above quotation is made, will find 
abundant evidence to show that Saint John is 
uttering a prophetic curse upon the city of 
Rome, the fulfilment of which was to take place 
during the days of the Caesars. The "beast" 
was the civil power of the Roman Empire ; " the 
seven heads are the seven mountains on which 
the woman sitteth," and the " woman" upon 
whose forehead was written the name "Mys- 
tery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Har- 
lots and Abominations of the Earth," was 
" that great city, which reigneth over the kings 
of the earth." (Rev. xiii, 1 ; xvii, 5, 9, 18.) 

This exposition is natural ; and if regard is had 
to the text itself, it seems absolutely necessary 
to apply the description in the fifth verse to the 
imperial city. Now, how can it be shown that 
John, when using this language, went beyond 
the object now stated, and shown by his own 
words to have been the one designed by it? 
Or, if it be assumed that there is an occult 
or hidden sense, how, we ask, can that be 
proved? and how, if there be a hidden sense, 
can it be made to appear that it is the Ro- 



THE GREAT IMAGE. 



79 



man Papacy to which this second application 
is to be made ? It is natural to presume, that 
whatever the Holy Spirit meant by the lan- 
guage of the Scriptures, it is important for us 
to know. It certainly becomes our duty to 
possess ourselves of the light and guidance of 
these sacred oracles, if it be true, as all will 
allow, that they were given for our instruction 
in righteousness, and to conduct us to eternal 
life. But how, if the sense be hidden, are we 
to find it out? Do you answer, by study? But 
we suppose that to study a particular book, is 
to seek the meaning of the w r riter under the 
guidance of the laws of construction, and the 
idiom of the language in which it is writ- 
ten. If, then, an author attaches to his lan- 
guage a meaning which a natural and just 
construction of his words and illustrations does 
not convey, how are we ever to be able to 
decide what he did, or did not mean ? If this 
is the character of the Holy Scriptures, then, 
in order to have a just and adequate knowl- 
edge of their meaning, we must have a revealer 
to reveal our common Revelation. 

H. It may be said that this exposition of the 
dream cannot be the true one, because it makes 
the stone to have struck the image upon the feet, 



80 



DANIEL VEKIFIED EST HISTORY. 



so as to have fulfilled the prophecy, and finished 
up the history of Rome, before its division into 
the "ten kingdoms;" for it was to be "in the days 
of these kings," that "the God of heaven" should 
"set up a kingdom" which should "stand forever." 

The objection is, in fact, that the exposition 
denies to the toes all prophetic power whatso- 
ever. Because the ten horns of the fourth beast 
in the vision of Daniel (chapter vii) are prophet- 
ical, it has been supposed that the ten toes of the 
image are of equal significance. Now we can 
scarcely imagine a more perfect example of 
self-imposition than that which those expositors 
have practised upon themselves, who have 
made the ten toes the symbols of as many 
kingdoms. It is true that Daniel speaks of the 
toes of the image, but then he does not say 
whether it had ten or twenty ; he does not say 
anything about the number of the toes. It may, 
however, be presumed that the figure was a per- 
fect one, and, consequently, that it had ten toes. 
But what of that? It is equally presumable 
that the image had two eyes, two ears, and ten 
fingers, if we reckon the two thumbs. Why, 
then, has it not been supposed that they infold 
some prophetic idea, which belongs to the com- 
plete exhibition of the affairs of those kingdoms 



THE GREAT IMAGE. 



81 



to which the general parts of the image are ap- 
plied, and to which these particular members 
belonged ? In relation to the scope of the rev- 
elation, the toes of the image stand in precisely 
the same position as these other portions of the 
human body. They are parts of a perfect figure 
of a man. "But the prophet mentions the toes, 
and does not even allude to these other mem- 
bers of the body." This is readily granted. We 
will, indeed, admit that, had the division of the 
fourth kingdom been predicated of the toes, the 
inference would have been just, that when that 
power should be divided, the number of the parts 
would be equal to the number of the toes, by 
which the division was symbolically indicated. 

It will be recollected, however, that the 
division of the "fourth kingdom " is expressly 
affirmed of the admixture of clay with the iron, 
and not of the toes at all. In ch. ii, 43, Daniel 
says, " And whereas thou sawest iron mixed 
with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves 
with the seed of men : but they shall not cleave 
one to another, [or, as in the margin, this with 
this.'] even as iron is not mixed with clay." 
Here, then, the dissolution of Rome is foretold 
by the mutual repugnancy of these materials, 

and not by the toes of the image. 

6 



82 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTOKY. 



The general idea seems to be this : so rapid 
and unparalleled was the extension of the Eoman 
Empire by conquest, that its own original power 
was insufficient to assimilate the discordant parts 
which were suddenly and violently joined to its 
already huge and unwieldy structure. Eome 
was prostrated, so far as earthly causes brought 
about the result, through her want of that inter- 
nal centralizing power from which the integrity 
of a state arises. 

In order to show further the utter absurdity 
and futility of the objection, we will for a mo- 
ment allow the idea of the symbolical character 
of the toes. And we now ask, when did the 
Eoman Empire exist in ten kingdoms? Did 
it ever consist of ten parts ? "We think this 
has never been shown ; nay, that it cannot be 
made to appear from history that Eome ever 
contained just ten kingdoms. But as ten is the 
number of the toes, no other number of king- 
doms will fulfil the prophecy. If the number 
of the kingdoms were less than the number of 
the toes,' then something would be wanting to 
fill up the measure of prophetic language ; but, 
on the other hand, if there should be found more 
than ten kingdoms, coexistent in the Eoman 
dominion within the period in which the ten 



THE GKEAT IMAGE. 



83 



are professedly found, what disposition is to be 
made of the excess, or how are we to determine 
which are the ten foreshadowed by the dream ? 
These questions must be disposed of, before it 
can be safely received as true, that the toes of 
the image signified that the fourth kingdom 
would be broken into ten parts. For if the 
true history of the nation to which the language 
of prophecy is applied, does not furnish the 
criterions given in the general description, we 
cannot see why it may not be positively assert- 
ed that the attempted exposition is wrong. And, 
besides, the number of the toes is definite ; con- 
sequently, the number of the kingdoms must be 
as definite. And yet the history of Rome does 
not furnish anything to correspond with this 
assumed condition of the prophetic symbol. 

This theory of exposition, however, has been 
deemed so material, that scarcely a single point 
has received so much attention, in the discussion 
of this prophecy, as the subject of the ten king- 
doms. And we cannot better exhibit to the read- 
er the evidence of this, than by laying before him 
the tabular results of the learning and ingenuity 
of several of our .most distinguished expositors 
of prophecy. The annexed table is transcribed 
from Home's Introduction, vol. ii ? p. 278. 



84 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



i 
i 


iWiiff 

gjf«ntii 


P 


The Lombards 

in 1 ioml)ar(ly. 


The Hum; in 
J 1 unwary. 

> 


i 

i 


n 

m 

> 


! L 

^ li 
1 


jjj 


II 

< | 

r 


h 

IS 

r 


p 
1 


i 


§5 

PQ 

of 

g 
to 
"3 
> 


o 
n? 


s 


1 


li 

1 


! 


II 


1 


r 




If 
lift 


ll 

1 




1 


.:. 




: 



GENEBAL ANALYSIS. 



85 



The Alemanni 
in Germany. 


The Franks in 
France. 


1 & 

fa ~3 
Pi 


The Goths in 
Spain. 


The Britons. 


The Saxons in 
Britain. 


The Burgundians. 


The Franks. 


The Britons. 


The Huns. 


The Lombards. 


The kingdom of 
Have una. 


Vandals, 407. 


Sueves and Alans, 
407. 


^3 
3 

bo 

1 


(§'| 
- 3 

OB rj 

lis 

o 2 2 


The Saxons, 476. 


The Longobardi in 
Hungary, 53G ; 
who were seated 
in the northern 
parts of Germany 
about 483. 


The Visigoths in 
the south of 
France and 
part of Spain. 


The Sueves and 
Alans in Gal- 
licia and Por- 
tugal. 


The Vandals in 
Africa. 


1 I 

^ S-i 

Eh 


The Ostrogoths, 
who were suc- 
ceeded by the 
Lombards in Pan 
nonia, and after- 
ward in Italy. 


The Greeks in 
the residue of 
the empire. 


The Franks in 
France. 


The Burgundi- 
ans in Bur- 
gundy. 


The Tleruli and 
Thuringi in 
Italy. 


The Saxons 
and Angles 
in Britain. 


The Huns in 
Hungary. 


The Lombards, 
first upon the 
Danube, and 
afterward in 
Italy. 


5. The fifth 
horn. 


6. The sixth 
horn. 


7. The seventh 
horn. 


8. The eighth 
horn. 


9. The ninth 
horn. 


10. The tenth 
horn. 



88 



DAJNTEL verified in history. 



By glancing over the preceding scales, it will 
be seen that not less than twenty kingdoms are 
made to figure upon the table of fulfilment, as 
the result of the labour and talents of these six 
distinguished writers. Now if it w T ere agreed 
that the toes of the image did possess some 
prophetic significance, not more than one of 
the lists of kingdoms enumerated could claim 
the distinction. And then, who has authority 
to say which one is the right scale? The fact, 
therefore, that within the very period in which 
the ten are professedly found, more than double 
the required number actually exist, goes, we 
think, to cast suspicion upon the whole theory 
by w T hich this exegetical result is obtained. 

Not only are the facts of history too numerous 
for an easy and safe application of the prophecy 
as thus explained, but the geographical limits 
are also made too wide for the language and 
spirit of the prediction. We have before said, 
that there is no evidence that the scene of 
the prophecy is shifted. Any connexion which 
Africa may have had, at any time during the 
fulfilment of this prediction, with the kingdoms 
which we have shown were the four signified, 
was, it must be remembered, wholly accidental, 
and, formed no leading feature of the grand pur- 



THE GREAT IMAGE. 



87 



pose of the prophecy. Why, therefore, Machi- 
avel and Mede should have gone to Africa to 
find one of the ten kingdoms, we cannot con- 
jecture. So far as there is any positive evi- 
dence in the case, they might as well have 
come to America itself. 

But, finally, when it is remembered that the 
image, when smitten by the " stone," instead 
of being broken into ten kingdoms, " became 
like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors," 
we think the reader will see the utter preposter- 
ousness of attempting to make these toes sym- 
bolize ten kingdoms, belonging to a group of 
objects which did not come into the scope of 
the dream. Perhaps our wonder ought to abate, 
that the gentlemen already named should have 
gone after the fugitive dust to Africa itself. 

There are several other points belonging to 
this category which demand attention, but the 
consideration of them is reserved until we shall 
have finished the general investigation of the 
vision of Daniel, contained in chapter vii ; and 
this will form the subject of the ensuing 
chapter. 



88 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTOET, 



CHAPTEK III. 



THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS. 



THE BEASTS IDENTIFIED — THE FOURTH BEAST — THE TEN 
HORNS — THE LITTLE HORN AND HIS TRANSACTIONS IDENTI- 
FIED — OBJECTIONS TO THE EXPOSITION ANSWERED, 



THE VISION OF THE BEASTS. 

1 In the first year of Bel- 
shazzar king of Babylon, 
Daniel had a dream and vis- 
ions of his head upon his 
bed : then he wrote the 
dream, and told the sum of 
the matters. 

2 Daniel spake and said, 
I saw in my vision by night, 
and behold the four winds 
of the heaven strove upon 
the great sea. 

3 And four great beasts 
came up from the sea, diverse 
one from another. 

4 The first was like a lion, 
and had eagles' wings ; I be- 
held till the wings thereof 
were plucked, and it was 
lifted up from the earth, and 
made stand upon the feet as 
a man, and a man's heart 
was given to it. 

5 And behold another 
beast, a second, like to a 



vii, 1-27. 

THE INTERPRETATION. 

15 1 Daniel was grieved in 
my spirit in the midst of my 
body, and the visions of my 
head troubled me. 

16 1 came near unto one 
of them that stood by, and 
asked him the truth of all 
this. So he told me, and 
made me know the interpre- 
tation of the things. 

17 These great beasts, 
which are four, are four 
kings which shall arise out of 
the earth. 

18 But the saints of the 
Most High shall take the 
kingdom, and possess the 
kingdom forever, even for- 
ever and ever. 

19 Then I would know 
the truth of the fourth beast, 
which was diverse from all 
the others, exceeding dread- 
ful, whose teeth were of iron, 
and his nails of brass ; which 



THE VISION OF THE TOVR BEASTS. 



89 



bear, and it raised up itself 
on one side, and it had three 
ribs in the mouth of it be- 
tween the teeth of it : and 
they said thus unto it, Arise, 
devour much flesh. 

6 After this, I beheld, and 
lo, another, like a leopard, 
which had upon the back of 
it four wings of a fowl ; the 
beast had also four heads ; 
and dominion was given to 
it. 

7 After this I saw in the 
night visions, and behold a 
fourth beast, dreadful and 
terrible, and strong exceed- 
ingly ; and it had great iron 
teeth : it devoured and brake 
in pieces, and stamped the 
residue with the feet of it : 
and it was diverse from all 
the beasts that were before 
it ; and it had ten horns. 

8 I considered the horns, 
and behold, there came up 
among them another little 
horn, before whom there 
were three of the first horns 
plucked up by the roots : 
and behold, in this horn were 
eyes like the eyes of man, 
and a mouth speaking great 
things. 

9 I beheld till the thrones 
were cast down, and the An- 
cient of days did sit, whose 
garment was white as snow, 
and the hair of his head like 
the pure wool : his throne 
was like the fiery flame, and 
his wheels as burning fire. 

10 A fiery stream issued 
and came forth from before 



devoured, brake in pieces, 
and stamped the residue with 
his feet ; 

20 And of the ten horns 
that were in his head, and of 
the other which came up 7 
and before w r hom three fell ; 
even of that horn that had 
eyes, and a mouth that spake 
very great things, whose look 
was more stout than his fel- 
lows. 

21 I beheld, and the same 
horn made war with the 
saints, and prevailed against 
them ; 

22 Until the Ancient of 
days came, and judgment 
was given to the saints of 
the Most High ; and * the 
time came that the saints 
possessed the kingdom. 

23 Thus he said, The 
fourth beast shall be the 
fourth kingdom upon earth, 
which shall be diverse from 
all kingdoms, and shall de- 
vour the whole earth, and 
shall tread it down, and break 
it in pieces. 

24 And the ten horns out 
of this kingdom are ten kings 
that shall arise : and another 
shall rise after them ; and he 
shall be diverse from the first, 
and he shall subdue three 
kings. 

25 And he shall speak 
great words against the Most 
High, and shall wear out the 
saints of the Most High, and 
think to change times and 
laws : and they shall be given 
into his hand until a time 



90 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



him : thousand thousands 
ministered unto him, and ten 
thousand times ten thousand 
stood before him : the judg- 
ment was set, and the books 
were opened. 

Ill beheld then because 
of the voice of the great 
words which the horn spake : 
I beheld even till the beast 
was slain, and his body de- 
stroyed, and given to the 
burning flame. 

12 As concerning the rest 
of the beasts, they had their 
dominion taken away : yet 
their lives were prolonged 
for a season and time. 

13 1 saw in the night vis- 
ions, and behold, one like the 
Son of man came with the 
clouds of heaven, and came 
to the Ancient of days, and 
they brought him near be- 
fore him. 

14 And there was giv- 
en him dominion, and glory, 
and a kingdom, that all peo- 
ple, nations, and languages, 
should serve him : his do- 
minion is an everlasting do- 
minion, which shall not pass 
away, and his kingdom, that 
which shall not be destroyed. 



and times and the dividing 
of time. 

2G But the judgment shall 
sit, and they shall take away 
his dominion, to consume and 
to destroy it unto the end. 

2 7 And the kingdom and 
dominion, and the greatness 
of the kingdom under the 
whole heaven, shall be given 
to the people of the saints 
of the Most High, whose 
kingdom is an everlasting 
kingdom, and all dominions 
shall serve and obey him. 



In our remarks upon the dream of Nebuchad- 
nezzar, we endeavoured to show that the image 
which he saw was a symbol of civil power; 
that the several metals which appear in the 
composition of it, are intended to represent 



THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS. 



91 



four great successive monarchies, with which, in 
some degree, is blended the history of the Jews, 
or rather certain important portions of it. We 
endeavoured to lay before the reader, what we 
deemed sufficient evidence to show that the 
whole period of time over which are spread 
the prophetical indications of the image, could 
not exceed ten hundred and eighty-two years. 
That the termination of that period is marked 
by the downfall of the fourth, or Roman Em- 
pire, not far from A. D. 479. These last points, 
it was shown, are strongly corroborated by the 
history of the stone and its action in the world, 
the chronology and general history of which, 
under the denomination of the Gospel, is known 
to every Sunday-school scholar. We make 
this brief recapitulation of the former chapter, 
because the vision of the four beasts embraces 
much of the history which belongs to the true 
fulfilment of the prophecy of the dream. The 
plane of this vision runs over the same coun- 
tries, involves the same governments, and in- 
cludes the same general features of history. 
There are, however, several points of great 
exegetical importance in the vision, which are 
not disclosed in the interpretation of the dream. 
These topics will mainly occupy our attention 



92 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



in the present dissertation, and yet it will be 
impossible wholly to avoid an occasional re- 
currence to subjects which have already been 
discussed. 

Respecting the date of this vision, it is said, 
in the first verse, to have occurred " in the first 
year of Belshazzar." (He is the same as the 
Labynitus or Nabonidus of profane history.) 
According to Eollin, (p. 105,) this prince came 
to the throne A. M. 3449, or B. C. 555, which 
would be from forty to fifty years later than 
the second year of Nebuchadnezzar. 

As the material points in the investigation of 
this vision are the fourth least, the ten horns, 
and the eleventh or little horn, we shall feel it 
unnecessary to detain the reader with lengthen- 
ed remarks upon its general symbols. Nor 
should we pause for this purpose at all — such 
is the general agreement among writers upon 
the subjects of the sea, the first three beasts, 
and the general purpose of the vision — were 
it not that this treatise may fall into the hands 
of some who are comparatively unfamiliar with 
the general subject and its evidences. 

The four beasts which appear in the vision 
of the prophet are seen to rise out of the sea. 
The symbolical meaning of the sea, or a vast 



THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS. 93 



coliection of water, is fully and perspicuously 
explained in Revelation, xvii, 15. The Apostle 
John had seen a vision, (Rev. xiii, 1,) very sim- 
ilar to that which Daniel saw ; and in the expla- 
nation given hiin by the angel it is said, "The 
waters which thou sawest .... are peoples, and 
multitudes, and nations, and tongues." See, also, 
Isa. xlviii, 1. Here it is shown that the sea, or 
that collection of waters so denominated, when 
applied to men, means a community, or an as- 
semblage of men in their national organization. 
"The sea, then, being people collectively, the 
stirring of the winds upon it must denote those 
commotions in the w r orld, and that troublesome 
state of affairs, out of which empires and king- 
doms commonly take their rise." 

Perhaps no other than a general reason can 
be assigned for the early custom of symbolizing 
nations and political powers by the use of the 
figure of brute beasts. It may, perhaps, be re- 
garded as belonging to the influence and fruits 
of hieroglyphical writing, which prevailed in 
some of the Oriental nations, even in the time 
of Daniel. The figures which the ancients em- 
ployed in their ordinary compositions, formed 
an essential part of their w r ritten language, and 
were, in general, founded upon some real or fan- 



94 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



cied analogy between the figure and the sub- 
ject represented by it. Scarcely anything of 
this species of composition remains now. except 
so much of it as is employed in armorial or her- 
aldic devices. The hieroglyphic and symbol 
proper have passed into the simile, metaphor, 
and other species of trope, which are now most 
commonly constructed of phonetic characters, 
and are rather figures of rhetoric than symbol- 
ical delineations. We need not stop to investi- 
gate the general grammar of the symbols. It 
is sufficient for our purpose that this application 
of the figure of the beasts was made in the 
prophetical interpretation by the angel. 

The general meaning of the four heasts is 
given in verse 17: " These great beasts, which 
are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of 
the earth." The eighteenth verse shows that by 
kings, in the former text, is meant civil powers 
or dominions, and not mere regal persons, as 
the word is sometimes employed to represent. 
"The saints of the Most High shall take the 
kingdom, and possess' 5 it "forever." (See verse 
23.) What kingdom can be intended here, other 
than the one just spoken of, and which is now 
the subject of exposition — the identical one sym- 



THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS. 



95 



bolized by the fourth beast? The four beasts, 
then, represent four monarchies. The order 
of narration is such as naturally suggests the 
idea of their having successively arisen, and 
each, after having flourished for a time, being 
swallowed up by the one which followed. From 
the fact that the interpretation of the dream 
clearly shows that four successive monarchies 
are represented by the four metals, it has been 
inferred that the idea of succession is intended 
to be understood as attaching to the symbol of 
the beasts; for it must be allowed, that this view 
of the subject rests as much upon analogy as 
upon explicit textual proof, unless what is said 
in verse 23 be understood as containing the evi- 
dence demanded: "The fourth beast shall be 
the fourth kingdom upon the earth." If the ap- 
plication of the term "earth" is confined within 
the scope of the vision, then the fourth kingdom 
must relate to the other three which are adum- 
brated by the beasts in the preceding descrip- 
tion. 

The attentive reader will observe, however, 
that the four powers symbolized by the beasts 
are not identified in the interpretation, as those 
are which were represented by the "image" in 
the dream. The latter are identified by their 



98 DAKIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



historical names, or such other characteristics 
as leave no doubt respecting their true histori- 
cal and chronological position. And although 
we are apparently left to the guidance of cir- 
cumstantial evidence, in determining what par- 
ticular powers are designated in this vision, yet 
they are circumstances which are so significant, 
that our opinions will be seen to rest upon a 
solid foundation, when their logical bearing is 
clearly understood. One point which it is of 
great importance to consider in this particular 
connexion is, that, during the period in which 
the transactions delineated in the symbolical 
scene were in a course of accomplishment, the 
"Son of man" received "a kingdom," in which 
"all people, nations, and languages shall serve 
him." By finding the date of this sublime event, 
we ^re put in possession of data by which our 
future course of inquiry is made intelligent and 
satisfactory. But again: the vision ends with 
the destruction of the fourth beast ; for Daniel 
says, (verse 11,) 4i I beheld even till the beast 
was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to 
the burning flame." This was the fourth beast. 
Now, as the vision ended with the destruction 
of the fourth monarchy, and as the Son of man 
received his kingdom before that event occurred 



THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS. 97 

which constituted the terminus ad quern, or end 
of the prophetic scene, are we not thereby fur- 
nished with evidence from which it is perfectly- 
safe to affirm, at least, that Rome was the king- 
dom symbolized by the fourth beast? Of this 
we are certain, namely, that the Roman power 
was prostrated, and that vast and tyrannical em- 
pire was broken into fragments, and scattered 
like the " chaff of the summer threshing-floors ;" 
and that, before this took place, the Son of God 
was manifested — set up his kingdom in the 
world, and the Gentiles began to flock to his 
standard. If the relation of these facts shows 
that Rome was the power designated by the 
fourth beast, then their retroverted influence 
becomes evidence by which we are enabled to 
pronounce upon the historical identity of the 
three preceding kingdoms, exhibited in the sym- 
bolical furniture of the vision in question. If 
Rome was the fourth, why should we hesitate 
to say that Greece was the third, Medo-Persia 
the second, and Babylon the first of these great 
powers? 

There is no necessity that we should multiply 
remarks upon the history of the first three of 
these kingdoms, as in their respective represent- 
ations in the imagery little if anything more is 



98 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



indicated by their separate symbols, than that 
they rose, flourished, and passed away. And 
those who wish to know the probable .reasons for 
selecting and applying the various beasts, as 
here employed, may consult those commenta- 
tors who have elaborately discussed the verbal 

%> 

sense of the various images employed in these 
prophecies. 

The points which particularly claim our atten- 
tion in a brief analysis of this subject are, the 

FOURTH BEAST — the TEN HORNS and the LITTLE 

or eleventh horn. And, 

1. Respecting the fourth beast, it has been 
already suggested that it is employed in this 
vision to foreshadow the Roman Empire, espe- 
cially during the period of its rapid and general 
ascendency among the nations of the earth, and 
also during its sudden and final prostration. 

The reader is particularly desired to notice, 
that there is an entire absence of all evidence 
that any transition took place in the scene por- 
trayed by the symbol of the beast. It is true 
that there are changes in the exhibition of the 
general subject, so as to complete the scenery of 
this moral drama. Still, an attentive reader will 
see that the various devices employed in im- 



THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS. 99 

aging forth the prophetic matter of this vision, 
have a perfect unity of design, and that the prog- 
ress of the whole is in obedience to the grand 
object to be unfolded. The subject matter 
of the vision remains unchanged, except so far 
as it results from a delineation of consecutive 
parts. 

If, then, Eome as a civil power is the object 
designed by the terrible beast, then Eome in 
her fall is shown by the slaying, destroying, 
and lurning of the hody of the least. Xo new 
power comes into the scene from the rising of 
the beast to the death and consumption of it, 
except the one shown to be the kingdom of 
the Messiah. This, however, has its own proper 
description. The scenery of the latter does, in 
some degree, move conjunctively with the tin 
foldings of the former, but then every one can 
see that they are as separate, in their nature and 
evidences, as any two or more of the planets 
which belong to the same system. 

If what is here said respecting the changeless 
nature of the subject to which the symbol is ap- 
plied be true, namely, that it is Eome, and 
nothing but Eome, then all the appurtenances of 
the least, so far as they are prophetical indicar 
tions, are intended to unfold some characteristic 



100 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

feature of the history of Rome in her civil and 
regal action. No change of organic power is 
shown by the coming up of a new hor?i, nor, 
indeed, any other change, but such as would in- 
cidentally arise in working the machinery of a 
great government. It only shows a change of 
the agents of government. If this is a fair and 
legitimate method of interpretation, and we 
think it is, it will be . very difficult for our ex- 
positors to justify their course in making Papa- 
cy the power described by the eleventh horn. 
If, then, as is commonly supposed, the ten horns 
are symbols of civil powers, the eleventh is 
also predictive of a civil and not of an ecclesias- 
tical establishment. It ought to be known, 
if it is not already, that the term beast, when 
metaphorically used, is never employed in the 
Holy Scriptures as a symbol of the Church 
or of Christianity. The only species of the 
animal creation with which the Bible sym- 
bolizes Christianity, is the Lamb. There is, 
however, a single example of mixed symbol, in 
which the beast and lamb are exhibited in an 
anomalous union. It is found in Rev. xiii, 11. 
This beast which John saw arise out of " the 
earth " had the horns of a lamb. But when it is 
remembered that this beast did not appear until 



THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS. 101 

after the death of the ^-horned beast, it will 
be seen that it describes a state of things sub- 
sequent to the fall of the Roman power. It no 
doubt was intended as a pre-exhibition of a Chris- 
tian power over the civil state, for the horn is the 
proper emblem of authority, just as the body of 
the beast is the emblem of the organic structure 
of the empire. The lowest sense, then, in which 
this mixed symbol can be understood, is a fore- 
showing of a nominal Christian influence presid- 
ing over a virtually pagan people, a state of things 
which became actual history after the division 
of the Roman Empire. This, however, cannot 
well exhibit Roman Papacy ; for in the example 
from Revelation, the state is seen crowning it- 
self with the lamb, whereas, in the history of 
Papacy, the truth is, that the Church crowned it- 
self with the beast. But the eleventh horn of 
Daniel was a part — an agent of the beast, and 
therefore it foreshowed something which be- 
longed to the veritable history of the power sym- 
bolized by the beast upon which this notorious 
horn grew. 

2. We will now proceed to inquire into the 
meaning of the horns, or, rather, the actual 
history portrayed by the symbol of the horns 
upon the fourth beast. 



102 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



¥e cannot divest ourselves of the belief, that 
those expositors who have so ingeniously elabo- 
rated a theory which makes these horns repre- 
sent as many kingdoms, and then in the elev- 
enth find the pope folly equipped with mitre, 
keys, and sword, were influenced by an ulti- 
mate desire to impeach Papacy, more than by 
a careful noting of the guides which they ought 
to have followed in their investigations of this in- 
teresting portion of prophecy. For if they had 
kept to the admitted meaning of the leading 
symbol in this part of the vision, how could they 
have avoided the conclusion, that the horns were 
intended to prefigure some striking characteris- 
tics of the political power adumbrated by the 
beast upon which the horns grow ? There can 
be no doubt that the horns are emblematical, 
for the beast is such a one as does not naturally 
grow horns — it is a carnivorous animal. We 
most cordially agree that Papacy ought to be 
impeached, both for its character and doings, 
but then we demur to this mode of conviction. 
"We deny the relevancy of the testimony here 
attempted to be brought against it. For if, as 
all will agree, the least represents Pome as a 
political power, then a horn must, by the same 
law of interpretation by which this decision is 



THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS. 



103 



made, represent some ruling or ?mVruling agent 
of the civil government to which it belongs. 
Obviously, then, as the horns are parts of the 
animal, we are shut up to the general history of 
the least in finding the particular history of the 
horns. 

But what says the text upon this point '? It 
says (verse 24) that " the ten horns out of this king- 
dom are ten kings that shall arise." The horns, 
then, represent kings, and not kingdoms. This 
declaration is made in explanation of the symbol, 
and the language of it is divested of all figure. 
These words must be understood in their proper 
lexicographical sense ; as much so as in verse 
23, where it is said that " the fourth beast shall 
be the fourth kingdom upon earth." All are 
agreed that beast, in this symbolical repre- 
sentation, stands for kingdom in the history 
predicted by it. Will not the unsophisticated 
common sense of men agree that that horn 
of the beast represents just what the angel 
affirms, namely, a king — a regal person exe- 
cuting the rule and authority of the power rep- 
resented by the beast ? 

This mode of interpretation is strongly cor- 
roborated by a parallel use of the same figures, 
and a corresuonding exposition and application 



104 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

of them, in the book of Kevelation. In chapter 
xiii, 1, John says, " I stood upon the sand of 
the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, 
having .... ten horns." In chapter xvii, 12, 
these horns are thus explained: "And the 
ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, 
which have received no kingdom as yet; but 
receive power as kings one hour with the 
beast." These kings are said to coexist with 
the beast, and to derive their authority from 
it. But how, if the horns are ten kingdoms, 
into which the beast is broken, and which 
could not have had an existence without 
the partition of the beast, can they be said to 
have " received power with the beast," that is, 
to coexist with it? That the vision of Daniel 
refers to the same subject as that which is here 
exhibited to John, we think there can be no rea- 
sonable doubt. 

The fact that the ten horns are seen congre- 
gated upon the beast, may be thought to mili- 
tate against the suggestion that they represent 
regal persons, who successively appear, in a 
given but prolonged dynasty of kings. But 
why should it be thought so ? Did not the 
image represent four powers in succession, and 
yet the several metals by which they are rep- 



THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS. 



105 



resented are all made to appear at once. 2s" ow 
it would be just as conclusive to affirm, that 
the four metals of the image represent four 
monarchies existing simultaneously, as to say 
that, because the horns all appeared upon 
the head of the beast at once, we must con- 
clude that the objects represented by them 
all existed in the self-same period of time. 
There is no more of succession intimated in the 
one case than in the other. ^Vhy, then, shall 
we, when it is allowed that the image portrays 
successive objects by a compound symbol, hesi- 
tate to concede that the horns, although appear- 
ing together upon the beast, are capable of sepa- 
ration, in that sense which allows the idea of the 
successive chronological existence of the objects 
unfolded by them? Such a construction is not 
only allowed by the essential idiom of symbol- 
ical language, but in this case it will be seen 
that the history involved in the representation 
absolutely demands such an application of these 
prognostic horns. 

It may be well, before attempting to collect 
and arrange the specific evidence upon these 
points, that we briefly recapitulate some of 
the results of our investigation, thus far prose- 
cuted, in order to exhibit a consecutive view 



108 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

of the subject, by which we doubt not we shall 
be the more easily conducted to the knowl- 
edge of the ten kings, and of that king who 
would " rise after them," and become the lead- 
ing agent in the prophetic scene. 

First It has been shown that the least repre- 
sents Rome in its civil character and history. 

Secondly. That the horns represent kings who 
flourished during that portion of the history of 
Rome which is foreshadowed by the imagery of 
this vision. 

Thirdly. It is also related, that during the 
dominion of the beast the Son of man received 
his kingdom. 

Fourthly. That after the last event named, 
but before the death of the beast, the eleventh 
horn came up, arraying itself in hostility 
against the Most High, and against the saints 
of the Most High, and pursuing them with 
relentless violence for " a time, times, and the 
dividing of time ;" at the end of which " the 
judgment" sits, and takes away the dominion 
of the horn, and finally bestows the kingdom of 
the beast upon " the people of the saints of the 
Most High." 

It must not be forgotten by the reader that 
the chronology of all these events is comprised 



THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS. 107 

in the history of the fourth kingdom. They 
took place before the death and burning of the 
terrible beast, which is the same as the fall of 
Borne. This, it will be remembered, we have 
before shown, took place A. D. 479, when, upon 
the death of Theodosius, the empire was di- 
vided ; or, as is shown by the action of the 
symbolical stone, the image was smitten and 
broken to pieces : for if the breaking down of 
the image signified the overthrow of the fourth 
monarchy, then the death of the beast is to be 
understood as representing the same fact. 

The dream of Xebuchadnezzar, and the vis- 
ion of Daniel, having a common limitation in 
the fall of Borne, it is perfectly allowable to 
employ the details which appear in their prog- 
ress, respectively, to explain the subordinate 
parts of either of them. By collating the vari- 
ous matters of these scenes, we may be able to 
find, if not the date of the particular periods in 
question, some event so prominent that its chro- 
nology may be pronounced without hesitation. 

It is very important that we settle the date 
from which the little horn arises. This will be 
done if we can determine the period in which 
the ten horns arose, for the other horn that 
came up belonged to the same dynasty of 



108 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

kings with the ten which preceded it. The text 
before us makes the point under consideration 
nearly certain ; for though it does not give the 
specific date at which the horns arose, it sets 
bounds within which we must find the history 
of these transactions. The rise of this horn 
could not occur after the burning of the beast, 
for the horns would be consumed with it. It 
could not have been before the advent of 
Christ, for the little horn was a notorious per- 
secutor of " the saints of the Most High." But 
if we refer to Daniel ii, 44, we shall find the 
following declaration : " And in the days of 
these kings shall the God of heaven set up a 
kingdom, which shall never be destroyed." 
This is the Messianic kingdom. But who 
were the " kings" alluded to ? Kings, here, 
cannot be understood as synonymous with king- 
doms, so as to say, that it was in the time 
of the four kingdoms represented by the four 
metals in the image. By consulting verses 
40-43 inclusive, it will be seen that Daniel is 
explaining the fourth kingdom, and especially 
the meaning intended by the attempted admix- 
ture of miry clay with iron in the feet and toes, 
showing that this prognosticated the dissolution 
of the fourth kingdom. Coincident with the in- 



THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS. 109 

cipient manifestation of the clay, the stone ap- 
peared, going on in the accumulation of power, 
until finally it prostrated the huge image. 

Can there, then, be any reasonable doubt re- 
specting the identity of these kings ? Are not 
" the kings" of chapter ii the exact correspond- 
ents of the " ten horns" of chapter vii ? Mow 
what is the exegetical result consequent upon 
this comparison of these parallel portions of the 
two visions? It is briefly this, that during a 
period in the history of the fourth empire, in 
which it was under a Mngly government^ the 
Messiah appeared and founded his kingdom. 
Here, then, our path leads us out into the field 
of verified history and chronology. Any mere 
tyro in history can mark off the iron age of 
Rome, nor will he hesitate long to determine 
the date of the appearance of clay in the feet 
of the image. He will tell you, that the iron 
strength and cohesion of the kingdom was du- 
ring the period of her republican liberty ; that 
that state of things which made possible, and 
in fact invited, the reinstatement of monarchy in 
the empire, exhibits the predicted manifesta- 
tion of clay ; and ere the Son of man appeared, 
the crown and sword overlaid the standard of 
the nation. 



110 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

If Gibbon may be a witness in the case, 
the second imperial government in Rome was 
established by Augustus Caesar, the first having 
ended with the expulsion of Tarquin the Proud, 
B. 0. 509. It is true that Julius Caesar attempt- 
ed to usurp imperial power over the Romans ; 
and had he not been assassinated in the attempt, 
he might have gained by intrigue what was 
subsequently awarded to Augustus ; for liberty 
was extinct in Rome, and the mutual distrust 
of the people and the senate had induced such 
evils, that, although they reciprocally hated 
tyranny, they were prepared to hazard a mon- 
archy, rather than longer endure the mischief 
and curse of anarchy. Here, then, is a dynasty 
of kings in Rome synchronizing with the found- 
ing of the kingdom of the Son of man. Jesus 
Christ was incarnated and crucified during the 
reign of the Caesars. The ten kings symbolized 
by the ten horns then were, 1. Augustus; 2. 
Tiberius; 3. Caligula; 4. Claudius; 5. Isero; 
6. Galba; 7. Otho; 8. Yitellius; 9. Yespasian; 
10. Titus ; consequently the eleventh must be 
DoiirriAN. It cannot be denied that " in the 
days of these Icings the God of heaven set up 
his kingdom." The blessed Saviour was born 
during the reign of Augustus, and died while 



/ 



THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS. Ill 

Tiberius sat upon the throne of the Roman 
Empire. 

3. One other point of essential importance in 
this investigation remains to be considered. It is 
embraced in the following inquiry : Does the 
known character of Domitian answer to the pro- 
phetic description of the eleventh horn, or king, 
as we have shown it to mean ? 

Let us, then, see the general features of his 
character, as the prophet has drawn the portrait- 
ure of the eleventh horn or king.* 

1. He was to be a vile persecutor of the 
saints. See verses 21 and 25. 

° Chapter vii, 21 : I beheld, and the same horn made war 
with the saints, and prevailed against them ; 

22 Until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was giv- 
en to the saints of the Most High ; and the time came that 
the saints possessed the kingdom. 

23 Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth king- 
dom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, 
and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, 
and break it in pieces. 

24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings 
that shall arise : and another shall rise after them ; and he 
shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. 

25 And he shall speak great words against the Most High, 
and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to 
change times and laws : and they shall be given into his hand 
until a time and times and the dividing of time. 

26 But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away 
his dominion to consume and to destroy it unto the end. 



112 



DANIEL VERIFIED EN" HISTORY. 



2. He was to be a foul blasphemer. (Verse 25.) 

3. He was to prevail over the Church for a 
u time and times and the dividing of time." (Uh) 

4. But in the end he was to be subdued, and 
his dominion was to "be taken away and con- 
sumed unto the end. (Terse 26.) 

First. As it respects the general character of 
the eleventh 'kings none who have made them- 
selves acquainted with the twelfth Ceesar, will 
hesitate in pronouncing the Danielitic portrait 
remarkably correct. There is in this picture of 
Dornitian's depravity a kind of daguerrean exact- 
ness. "He shall wear out the saints of the Most 
High." The persecution of the Christians by the 
bloody Domitian was so cruel and systematic, 
that it has been installed in history as the second 
of the ten great persecutions of the Church. It 
is stated that forty thousand Christians were 
destroyed by his cruelty. It was during the 
rage of this fiendish proscription that the belov- 
ed John was banished to Patmos. 

Secondly. He is llasvhemous. "'He shall 
speak great words against the Xost High , . . 
and think to change times and laws," (verse 25.) 
or, as it is rendered by Symmachus, "He shall 
speak great vjords as the Most High " that is ; 



THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS. 113 

setting himself above all laws, divine and hu- 
man. (Ben. Com., in loco.) The following cita- 
tions will show how accurately the prophetic 
pencil has drawn this feature of Domitian's 
character. Dr. Anthon, in his Classical Dic- 
tionary, under article " Domitianus, Titus Fla- 
vius," says: "The character of Domitian is 
represented by all ancient historians in the 
darkest colours, as being a compound of timidity 
and cruelty, of dissimulation and arrogance, of 
self-indulgence and stern severity toward others. 
He gave himself up to every excess, and plunged 
into the most degrading vices. Conceiving, at 
last, the mad idea of arrogating divine honours to 
himself, he assumed the titles of Loed and God, 
and claimed to be the son of Minerva." Mr. 
Eobbins, speaking of this Domitian, says, " He 
caused himself to be styled God and Lord in all 
the papers that were presented to him." — World 
Displayed, vol. ii, page 22. Gieseler, in his 
Text-Book of Ecclesiastical History, vol. i, page 
23, in a note upon the " change in the state of 
religious feeling under the emperors," says that 
"Domitian began his decrees with the words, 
'Dominus et Deus noster hoc fieri jubet.'" 
(Sueton. Domit.) "The Lord our God commands 
thU to he done" 

8 



114: DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

Thirdly. The saints were to be "given into his 
hand until a time and times and the dividing of 
time" (Verse 25.) It will be important, in the 
first place, that we fix the period of time desig- 
nated by the words " a time and times and the di- 
viding of time." In the fourth chapter we have an 
account of a dream related by Nebuchadnezzar, 
and interpreted by Daniel. By this dream it 
was shown that the reigning monarch should be 
"driven from men," and that his dwelling 
should " be with the beasts of the field ;" that he 
should "eat grass as oxen," and be "wet with the 
dew of heaven," and that " seven times" should 
pass over him. (See verses 25 and 32.) The word 
"times" in this place has the same signification 
which it has in chapter vii, 25. Now it is a 
little remarkable that Dr. Clarke and Benson, 
who so unhesitatingly quote what Bishop New- 
ton says about prophetic time in relation to 
the history of the little horn, should, when 
the same word occurs in the interpretation of the 
dream of the "tree" be studiedly silent upon the 
signification of it. The nature of the sub- 
ject in this latter case positively forbids the 
crowding of an occult or mystical sense into the 
word. And, besides, Papacy could not be im- 
peached by even a forced application of the his- 



THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS. 115 

toiy involved in the dream. The fact that the 
prophetic matter foreshown by the prognostic 
tree, must be interpreted by a portion of the 
history of an individual, shows that the period 
of " seven times " cannot signify more than 
seven years. But then the word times in this 
passage is used in as absolutely a prophetical 
sense as it is in chapter vii. On this latter 
example Bishop Newton says : "'A time,' all 
agree, signifies a year ; and 6 a time, and times, 
and the dividing of time,' or half & time, are 
three years and a half." But because, in his 
judgment, the "horn" is the representative of 
a kingdom, and not of a king, he makes it 
signify twelve hundred and sixty years, which, 
according to his prediction, is to be the life- 
time of Papacy. But such methods of inter- 
pretation are entirely too loose and conjectural; 
and in this instance the expositor seems to leave 
his proper office, and obtrude himself into the 
seat of the prophet. It is time that our methods 
of exposition take on the merit of consistency and 
harmony, and that we yield supreme deference 
to the scope of the subject, and to cognate evi- 
dence, in giving the meaning of the word of 
God. How, we ask, can we be consistent with 
ourselves, if, when a word is used in two dis- 



116 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

courses by the same writer, and in the same style 
of composition, we give it in one case a plain, 
popular meaning, and in the other a mystical and 
unnatural signification? "We think that none, 
unless influenced by prejudice to a theory, can 
fail to see that this has been clone in the ex- 
amples before us. If the word " times,' 7 when 
occurring in a prophetical discourse, thereby 
infolds a mystical sense, then we are to attrib- 
ute the same meaning to it in all cases where it 
is used in corresponding conditions. No other 
rule, it seems to us, can be followed safely. But 
what will be the result of thus interpreting the 
word "times," as it applies to King Nebuchadnez- 
zar, and what the length of the period of " seven 
times n during which he was to u eat grass as 
oxen?" The answer is easily given, as Bishop 
Newton has furnished the rule of computation 
in his Dissertation on Prophecy, page 221. 
"A time, then, and times, and half a time are 
three years and a half; and the ancient Jewish 
year consisting of twelve months, and each 
month of thirty days, a time, and times, and 

half a time, or three years and a half 

reckoned in the style of the prophets," a day for 
" a year, are twelve hundred and sixty years ;" 
consequently " seven times," according to this 



THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS. 117 



rule of computation, would be two thousand five 
hundred and twenty years, the period given be- 
ing just twice as long as the example which the 
bishop has explained, Now suppose Nebuchad- 
nezzar to have been driven out from society say 
B. C. 570, at this time (1856) he has been graz- 
ing for a period of two thousand four hundred 
and twenty-six years, and has yet to wander for 
the period of ninety-four years before he can 
return to his throne. The absurdity of such a 
construction of the passage will be apparent to 
every reader. And why should we not interpret 
the word " time " in relation to the eleventh horn 
(for he too is a king) just as we do when it 
relates to King Nebuchadnezzar ? The com- 
mon sense of men will say that " seven times/' 
when applied to the exile of Chaldea, can mean 
nothing more than seven years, "What reason is 
there which requires that u a time, and times, 
and the dividing of time," should be interpreted 
to mean twelve hundred and sixty years ? Why 
not understand it to mean a year, years, and a 
part of a year, or " one year, two years, half a 
year — three and a half years." 

Now the question is. Did Domitian persecute 
the Church for three years and a half, according 
to the specification in the text ? 



118 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



When did he begin his work of violence and 
blood against the Christians? Mosheim, vol. i, 
page 58, says: "But in the year 93 or 94: a 
new assault was made upon them [the Chris- 
tians] by Dwnitian, an emperor little inferior to 
Nero in baseness of character and conduct." In 
a note upon this passage by Dr. Murdoch, we are i 
informed that u Pagi (Crit. Annal. Baron., torn, 
i, pp. 85-87) supposes it began A. D. 93." Petavi- 
us, however, asserts that the persecution began in 
the early part of the year 93, and ended with 
the death of the emperor, which took place on 
the fourteenth of the kalends of October, in the 
year 96. ISTow if we reckon back from his death, 
which occurred September 18, A. D. 98, three 
years and a half, it brings us to March, A. D. 
93, precisely the period at which Petavius fixes 
the date of the beginning of the persecution by 
Domitian. 

This mode of verifying the fulfilment of this 
part of the prediction, receives strong confirma- 
tion by the fact that the whole transaction in 
question was to take place in the lifetime of a 
single king r , for " another little horn" was another 
king. Indeed, nothing specific is attributed to 
the ten, which preceded this " little horn," 
thereby showing that it was in the purpose of 



THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS. 119 

God to concentrate the light of prophecy upon 
this arrogant and monstrous sinner. 

Fourthly, Another circumstance in the de- 
scription by which we are to be guided in veri- 
fying this prediction, is, that " they shall take 
away his dominion, to consume and to destroy 
it unto the end." (Verse 26.) Does the history 
of Domitian fulfil this feature of the descrip- 
tion? 

The days of the Caesars were days of ambition 
and intrigue. The favour of the soldiery could 
carry any man to the throne, and clothe him with 
the imperial purple. It did carry Yespasian, a 
descendant of an obscure family at Eeate, to 
this high place of power and trust. The dy- 
nasty founded by him was destroyed in less than 
thirty years. His family, after having given 
three emperors to Rome, was expelled from the 
throne. The imperial power and dignity of the 
Flavian family were terminated in Domitian. 
After the violent death of Domitian (by some be- 
lieved to have been procured by the govern- 
ment) the " senate issued a decree that his name 
should be struck out of the Koman annals, and 
obliterated from every public monument." Thus 
was " his dominion taken away and consumed 
unto the end." 



120 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



The historical facts now cited show a very 
striking fulfilment of the language and spirit 
of the prediction under investigation. We 
have not thought it necessary to cite all the 
historical authorities which give light upon this 
general subject, nor to dwell longer upon these 
details, so clear and obvious are the leading 
views of the subject which have been already 
sketched. 

And especially is further detail unnecessary, 
inasmuch as all fair exegesis requires us to find 
the history of all these " kings" in a period syn- 
chronizing with the setting up of the kingdom 
of God, (chapter ii, 44,) and the transfer of the 
kingdom to "the saints of the Most High." 
(Chapter vii, 18. 27.) 

The fact alone of the conjunctive history of 
these events, ought to settle all questions respect- 
ing their chronology, even if we were not able 
to trace any of the details of the transactions in 
question in the imperfect history of those times. 

Let us now present the reader with a sum- 
mary of the points intended to be shown by the 
brief exposition which has been set before him. 

1. We have shown that the four beasts sym- 
bolize four successive empires. 



THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS. 121 

2. That the fourth power is Rome in her civil 
being and history. 

3. That the symbolical horns denote regal 
persons, and not empires. 

4. The eleventh or " little horn" designates 
Domitian, the twelfth Caesar, and not the 
Pope. 

5. That the prominent transactions of this 
"horn" are strikingly verified in the history 
of that monstrous and blaspheming enemy of 
Christ and his followers. 

6. And that the whole exposition now given 
is most strongly confirmed by the fact, that the 
matter of the prophecy is shown, by the very 
terms of it, to be coincident in time with the 
first establishment of the Gospel of Christ. 

We can easily foresee, however, that objections 
will arise in some minds, a few of which it may 
be well to answer in this connexion. It has been 
maintained that " time and times and the divid- 
ing of time " must be understood prophetically, 
and cannot, therefore, be limited to the history 
of an individual ; consequently, these words must 
be applied to some great povjer of extended 
history. 

To this we answer : First, It has been already 



122 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

shown that the natural and obvious sense of 
this phrase in the Bible, fully justifies the expo- 
sition which we have given to it in this place. 
That it is a common mode of designating peri- 
ods of time, and was used in its true historical 
sense in the earliest records of the Jews, when 
an occult sense could not be involved.* And, 
moreover, it has not been shown by any writer, 
so far as we know, that the words time and 
times contain an occult sense in this prophecy. 
It is true that it has been asserted, and by a 
writer whose learning and popularity would go 
as far as any man's toward verifying an hypothe- 
sis upon mere ipse dixit. But too much is in- 
volved, and exegetical results of too grave im- 
portance are concerned in the issue, to justify 
the admission that it contains a double sense in 
this case, without the clear ipso facto proof of 
an occult sense. 

Secondly. We reply that there is no example 
of prophetic time in the Bible, if by this phrase 
it is meant that words which are employed to 
denote periods of time, contain a meaning not 
conveyed by such words in their popular accep- 
tation, or, technically, the usus loquendi of lan- 
guage. Perhaps we shall be asked, " Did not 

° See Genesis i, 1 4. 



THE VISION OF THE FOUR BL5ASTS. 123 



God say to Moses and Aaron, ' After the days in 
which ye searched the land, even forty days, 
each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniqui- 
ties, even forty years?' (Num. xiv, 34.) And 
again, did he not say to Ezekiel, (iv, 5, 6,) ' For 
I have laid upon thee the years of their ini- 
quity, according to the number of the days, three 
hundred and ninety days. ... I have appointed 
thee each day for a year V " It is very true all of 
this was said. But what does it prove concern- 
ing the question of prophetic time ? "What 
parallel can be made out which can be tortured 
into evidence of an occult sense in Daniel? 
Even if it were true, that in the several pas- 
sages quoted the writers had used the same 
words, it would be still quite possible that the 
doctrinal sense might be different, as it is well 
known that words are used in different applica- 
tions by different writers. 

But the reader can see that the words day and 
time are quite different; sufficiently so, at least, 
to suggest that there is no necessary parallel in 
the sense of the examples compared. And, be- 
sides, it is perfectly apparent that the word 
"day" is used without any actual augmentation 
of its meaning. The period denoted by the word 
" day " is used as a symbol of the longer period 



124 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

of a "year." But so settled and absolute was 
the meaning of the word " day," that it would 
never have occurred to the parties concerned 
that it was used to represent a year, had not 
that idea been plainly expressed, and that, too, by 
the proper term denoting a year. 

But if it were allowed, for the sake of the ar- 
gument, that the words "day" and "days" were 
so augmented in their application as to mean a 
year, and years, how would that prove that 
time, times, and a dividing of time, which all 
agree means a year, years, and a part of a 
year, or three years and a half, are to be 
multiplied into themselves so as to make as 
many years as there are days in the three 
and a half years given? It by no means fol- 
lows, that because God employed a day for the 
symbol of a year with Moses and Ezekiel, that 
he employs a time, the proper sign of a yea?', as 
a symbol of a year of years with Daniel. And 
yet this point, material to the exposition of those 
who explain these phrases to mean twelve hun- 
dred and sixty years, has no other proof than a 
gratuitous assumption. 

Thirdly. It may be objected that the day of 
judgment is described in connexion with the 



THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS. 125 

occurrences predicted in this chapter ; and, 
therefore, that the true interpretation of this 
prophecy cannot be restricted to the past, but 
must be regarded as standing in proximate con- 
nexion with the final history of the world. 

It is granted that <z judgment is described, but 
what proof is there that it is the last or final 
judgment that is here predicted? We confess 
that we do not see any, unless, indeed, it exists 
in the emphatic form of the description, as " the 
judgment," "the books." (See chapter vii, 9, 10, 
26.) This apparent emphasis, however, would not 
be sufficient proof of the assumption, unless it 
were also shown that such language is never 
otherwise employed than in describing the last 
judgment. Certain it is, that the sublime 
imagery in the language of Daniel is not pecu- 
liar, nor is it exclusively applied, to the revela- 
tion of the last judgment. If, then, we can show 
that language of the same import, embodying 
the sublime and impressive in an equal degree, 
is used in relation to inferior things, or in refer- 
ence to similar civil events, will not that be 
sufficient proof that there is no absolute neces- 
sity for understanding it in the case in question as 
referring to the final judgment ? 

Take the following for one example : 2 Chron. 



126 DANIEL VERIFIED IX HISTOKY. 

xviii, 18, "Again he said) Therefore hear the 
word of the Lord ; I saw the Lord sitting upon 
his throne, and all the host of heave?i standing 
on his right hand and on his leftP 

Now let this language be compared with the 
description of Daniel, and if his shall appear 
more elaborate than that of Micaiah, it will be 
seen that the latter incorporates the same 
general objects, viz.: God — the throve — 
and the hosts of HEAVEN. And what was the 
purpose of this grand summoning of the " hosts 
of heaven P Why to find one " who shall en- 
tice Ahab, king of Israel, that he may go up 
and fall at Kamoth-Gilead." (Verse 19.) 

Turn also to Isaiah xiii, 9-13. I will quote 
only a part of the passage: "For the stars of 
heaven and the constellations thereof shall not 
give their light; the sun shall be darkened in 
his going forth, and the moon shall not cause 

her light to shine Therefore I will shake 

the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of 
her place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts, 
and in the day of his fierce anger." 

It will hardly be maintained that the im- 
agery of Daniel exceeds in grandeur that of 
Isaiah, and yet the context shows, beyond a 
question, that the general judgment cannot be re- 



THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS. 127 

ferred to in this solemnly imposing scene. The 
subject of the prophecy is the overthrow of 
Babylon by the Medes, for the deliverance 
of the Jews. (See verses 1, 17-22 ; and 
xiv, 1.) 

The passages now quoted are sufficient to 
prove, that descriptive language, such as is used 
by Daniel, is frequently employed by the sacred 
writers in reference to other events than the last 
judgment; consequently, resort must be had, in 
every case, to the context, in order to settle the 
application of figurative language. 

It is not difficult to say what interpretation is 
to be put upon Daniel's vision of a judgment, 
standing as it does in immediate connexion with 
the overthrow of the fourth least, and even 
more specifically with the little horn, who 
is represented as hostile to God and his 
saints. It is a pre-exhibition of a judgment 
against that corrupt power and its agencies, 
which acted a profane and presumptuous part 
against the " Most High," and against the 
" saints of the Most High." That power, we 
have seen, was Rome, and the functions of 
it represented by the "horns" were its regal 
agencies, the eleventh of which was the very 
person for whom the judgment was appointed, 



128 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

and by it his dominion was taken away and con- 
sumed unto the end. (Chapter vii, 26.) 

Finally. It lias been so common to apply this 
description to the Pope and Papal power of 
Pome, that it may be proper to say a few things 
in reply to any objections which may arise from 
this source. It will not be necessary, however, 
to dwell here, if our preceding expositions are 
correct. Relying upon the justness of our ap- 
plication of the text, we shall only recapitulate 
a few points, and add to them a thought or two 
to show the absurdity of attempting to identify 
Papacy by the symbolical imagery of the text. 

It being indisputable that the fourth beast 
represents the civil power of Rome, it follows that 
the horns prefigure the governmental functions of 
that nation ; and there being no intimations in 
the exposition of the symbol, that any transition 
in the history will take place in the fulfilment of 
the prediction, we conclude, and we think justly, 
that when the body is destroyed the members 
perish with it. Now that the civil power of 
Rome was destroyed before Papacy arose, is 
settled by unquestionable historical evidence. 
No creditable authority will attempt to fix the 
date of Papacy, as a ruling power, earlier than 
the beginning of the seventh century, and yet it 



THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS. 129 

is incontrovertible that the Roman empire was 
destroyed before the close of the fifth century. 
How these horns could be nourished into the life 
and growth of power by the ashes and cinders 
of the consumed beast, exceeds the force of our 
ingenuity to explain. Tradition must have fur- 
nished to the eye of fancy a mirage which has 
deceived the logical skill of this school of inter- 
preters. 

As we go on with the topics which yet re- 
main to be discussed, additional corroborative 
proof will be given in support of our positions 
thus far set forth ; we shall, for the present, add 
nothing upon the vision of the four beasts. The 
next chapter will be devoted to the examination 
of the vision of the Earn and He-Goat. 
9 



130 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



CHAPTER W. 

THE VISION OF THE RAM AND THE HE-GOAT. 

THE KINGDOMS IDENTIFIED — THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE VISION — 
THE FOUR HORNS EXPLAINED — THE FIFTH HORN — THE TDIE, 
PLACE, PERSON, AND TRANSACTIONS VERIFIED IN HISTORY — 
THE TWO THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED EXPLAINED. 

DANIEL viii,ix, xi, xii. 



THE VISION. 

1 In the third year of the 
reign of King Belshazzar a 
vision appeared unto me, 
even unto rne Daniel, after 
that which appeared unto me 
at the first. 

2 And I saw in a vision ; 
and it came to pass, when I 
saw, that I was at Shushan 
in the palace, which is in the 
province of Elam ; and I saw 
in a vision, and I was by the 
river of Uiai. 

3 Then I lifted up mine 
eyes, and saw, and behold, 
there stood before the river 
a ram which had two horns : 
and the two horns were high ; 
but one was higher than the 
other, and the higher came 
up last. 

4 I saw the ram pushing 
westward, and northward, 
and southward : so that no 



THE INTERPRETATION. 

19 And he said, Behold, I 
will make thee know what 
shall be in the last end of the 
indignation : for at the time 
appointed the end shall be. 



20 The ram which thou 
sawest haying two horns are 
the kings of Media and 
Persia. 



THE VISION OF THE RAM AND HE-GOAT. 131 



beasts might stand before 
him, neither was there any 
that could deliver out of his 
hand ; but he did according 
to his will, and became great. 

5 And as I was consider- 
ing, behold, a he-goat came 
from the west on the face of 
the whole earth, and touched 
not the ground : and the 
goat had a notable horn be- 
tween his eyes. 

6 And he came to the ram 
that had two horns, which I 
had seen standing before the 
river, and ran unto him in 
the fury of his power. 

7 And I saw him come 
close unto the ram, and he 
w T as moved with choler 
against him, and smote the 
ram, and brake his two horns: 
and there was no power in 
the ram to stand before him, 
but he cast him down to the 
ground, and stamped upon 
him : and there was none 
that could deliver the ram 
out of his hand. 

8 Therefore, the he-goat 
waxed very great : and when 
he was strong, the great horn 
was broken ; and for it, came 
up four notable ones toward 
the four winds of heaven. 

0 And out of one of them 
came forth a little horn, 
which waxed exceeding great, 
toward the south, and to- 
ward the east, and toward 
the pleasant land. 

10 And it waxed great, 
even to the host of heaven ; 



21 And the rough goat is 
the king of Grecia : and the 
great horn that is between 
his eyes is the first king. 



22 Now that being broken, 
whereas four stood up for it, 
four kingdoms shall stand up 
out of the nation, but not in 
his power. 

23 And in the latter time 
of their kingdom, when the 
transgressors are come to 
the full, a king of fierce 
countenance, and under- 
standing dark sentences, shall 
stand up. 

24 And his power shall be 



132 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



and it cast down some of the 
host and of the stars to the 
ground, and stamped upon 
them. 

1 1 Yea, he magnified him- 
self even to the prince of the 
host, and by him the daily 
sacrifice was taken away, and 
the place of his sanctuary 
was cast down. 

12 And a host was given 
him against the daily sacri- 
fice by reason of transgres- 
sion, and it cast down the 
truth to the ground ; and it 
practised, and prospered. 

13 Then I heard one saint 
speaking, and another saint 
said unto that certain saint 
which spake, How long shall 
be the vision concerning the 
daily sacrifice, and the trans- 
gression of desolation, to give 
both the sanctuary and the 
host to be trodden under 
foot? 

14 And he said unto me, 
Unto two thousand and three 
hundred days ; then shall the 
sanctuary be cleansed. 



mighty, but not by his own 
power : and he shall destroy 
wonderfully, and shall pros- 
per, and practise, and shall 
destroy the mighty and the 
holy people. 

25 And through his policy 
also he shall cause craft to 
prosper in his hand ; and he 
shall magnify himself in his 
heart, and by peace shall de- 
stroy many: he shall also 
stand up against the Prince 
of princes ; but he shall be 
broken without hand. 

26 And the vision of the 
evening and the morning 
which was told is true : 
wherefore shut thou up the 
vision ; for it shall be for 
many days. 

27 And I Daniel fainted, 
and was sick certain days; 
afterward 1 rose up, and did 
the king's business ; and I 
was astonished at the vision, 
but none understood it. 



We now enter another field of investigation, 
both in history and chronology. There is little 
that is proximate, either in time or in the histor- 
ical matter contained in the vision of the four 
leasts, and that of the ram and the he-goat. It 
is true that two of the kingdoms included in the 
former symbolical scene, are reproduced in the 
imagery of the latter. But they do not figure 



THE VISION OF THE RAM AND HE-GOAT. 133 



in the former ; they only appear and disappear ; 
while in the latter symbol they are the chief 
actors in the historical drama. 

All doubt is excluded in relation to the two 
powers intended to be represented by the animals 
employed in this symbol, by the unequivo- 
cal exposition of them in verses 20 and 21: 
" The ram which thou sawest having two horns 
are the kings of Media and Persia. And the 
rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great 
horn that is between his eyes is the first king." 
Here, then, is a true historical stand-point; and, 
moreover, a geographical field is given within 
which our investigations are to be conducted. 
We shall adhere to our rule not to seek for 
transitions in these respects, when none are 
made, either in relation to persons or organic 
powers. Medo-Persia and Macedonia are, there- 
fore, the countries and nations in which, and 
among whose historical records, we are to con- 
duct our inquiries in the ensuing exposition. 

As in the former vision a bear is employed to 
denote the Medo-Persian empire, and in this a 
ram is substituted for it, the general reader may 
desire to know the reason assigned for this 
change. The following remark, by Mr. Benson, 
(in a note on the third verse,) is at least very 



134 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

plausible. "The Hebrew word for a rain is 
ail ; and eelam, which is the Hebrew word for 
Persia, both sprang from the same root; and 
both implying something of strength, the one is 
not improperly made the type of the other. The 
propriety of it appears further from hence, that 
it was usual for the king of Persia to wear a 
rarrfs head, made of gold, and set with precious 
stones, instead of a diadem. "We may add, that a 
ramh head with horns, one higher and the other 
Tower, was the royal ensign of the Persians, and 
is still to be seen on the pillars of Persepolis." 
It seems probable, therefore, that by adopting 
as a symbol the armorial device of the nation, 
it was intended to identify the nation which was 
particularly interested in the prophecy. 

The inequality of the horns of the ram is 
somewhat anomalous, and without doubt has a 
prophetic indication. One horn "was higher 
than the other, and the higher came up lastP 
It is so apparent, from the text, that the coalition 
of the Medes and Persians in a consolidated 
government is intended by this feature of the 
vision, that no further proof of the point is 
necessary. The circumstances leading to this 
result were substantially the following: Cyrus 
was son of Cambyses, King of Persia, and his 



THE VISION OF THE RAM AND HE-GOAT. 135 

maternal parent, Mandane, was the daughter 
of Astyages, King of Media ; and, moreover, 
having married Eoxana, the daughter and only- 
child of Cyaxares, (whom Daniel calls Darius,) 
he became, by these relations, the heir of both 
the thrones of Media and Persia. Succeeding 
then his father, Cambyses, and inheriting the 
crown of his father-in-law, he formed the two 
governments into one vast kingdom, known 
as the Medo-Persian empire. Hence it was, 
that although Media was the oldest of the 
two kingdoms, Persia in the end became the 
largest 

A few words will suffice in explanation of 
the symbol of the goat, here employed to de- 
note Macedon, or Greece. For two hundred 
years previous to the date of Daniel's prophecy 
this symbol was used to describe the Grecians, 
as they were called JEgeadoe, the goats' people. 
The following account is given of the origin of 
this symbol: "Caranus, their first king, go- 
ing with a great multitude of Greeks to seek 
new habitations in Macedonia, was commanded 
by the oracle to take the goats for his guides 
to empire; and afterward, seeing a herd of 
goats flying from a violent storm, he followed 
them to JEdessa, and there fixed the seat of 



136 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



his empire, and made the goats his ensigns or 
standards ; and called the place JEge, or JEgea, 
the goats' town ; and the people, JEgeadce" 

These brief expositions of the general history 
of the symbols, are sufficient to show that their 
use in the prophetic scenery is not arbitrary ; 
and as their application in historv in this case 
has been revealed, (verses 20 and 21,) we may 
proceed at once to inquire into the details of the 
prophetical exposition of the vision itself. 

There is little occasion to say much con- 
cerning the ram, which represented Medo- 
Persia; for, besides exhibiting this monarchy and 
its destruction by the goat, nothing is said about 
it. It falls a victim to the rage and power of 
the great horn of the goat, and then wholly 
disappears. Nor, indeed, is there any great 
necessity to trace the career of the goat, only 
as it will aid us to identify in history the fifth 
horn and its transactions, which form the prin- 
cipal objects of the revelation. It is material, 
however, to fix the identity of the great horn, 
as it is in a form of its succession that the lit- 
tle horn arises, which figures so conspicuously 
in the concluding transactions of this vision. 
This, together with the chronology of the history 
represented in the scene before the mind of 



THE VISION OF THE RAM AND HE-GOAT. 137 

the prophet, will furnish our principal guides in 
searching for the particular events which explain 
the subsequent parts of the revelation made 
through this symbolical representation. 

In verse 21 it is said, " The rough goat is the 
king of Grecia, and the great horn that is be- 
tween his eyes is the first king." The goat is, 
then, the symbol of Grecia, and the horn de- 
notes her king, and not the kingdom itself. But 
who is this first king? If the reader will 
notice critically the historical indication of the 
period of time when the Grecian power ap- 
pears in the vision, it will very greatly assist 
him in identifying the historical person of the 
u great horn." Looking down the stream of 
time, the prophet saw rising up before his mind 
the Grecian goat, just at that period in the 
history of nations when the before powerful 
and ascendant Medo-Persian empire is seen 
crumbling into dust. Nay, it was this very 
Macedonian king who overthrew the ram and 
its anomalous horns. And is there need that 
we should ask who fought the great battles at 
the river Granicus, at the Straits of Issus, and 
on the plains of Arbela? Or who it was that, 
with an army less than fifty thousand, subdued 
Darius, whose forces numbered from six hun- 



138 



DANIEL VERIFIED IX HISTORY. 



dred thousand to eleven hundred thousand 

men ? 

But, was Alexander the Great the first king 
of Grecia ? Certainly not, for Alexander vras 
himself the son of a king. We have alrea- 
dy said, that the Grecian dominion appeared 
in the vision at that period in history when 
it gained the ascendency over the Eastern 
Empire, and hence the meaning of the passage 
is, that Alexander is the first Grecian king who 
reigned in Asia. And hence, too, it is clear, 
that the portion of Grecian history represented 
in this vision, dates from the conquest of the 
Medo-Persian empire; or, which is the same 
thing chronologically, from the fall of Darius 
Codomannus, which occurred about three hun- 
dred and thirty-five years before Christ. 

From this date we enter the stream of time, 
and commence our search after the evidence 
with which we are to identify the little horn, 
which so fearfully desolated i; the pleasant 
land." And if we can content ourselves to 
glide on with the current of events, and not 
push out into the shallow waters of conjecture, 
we doubt not we shall find abundant indications 
by which to direct our course into the ha- 
ven of truth and rational conviction. There 



THE VISION OF THE RAM AND HE-GOAT. 139 

are too many, however, who are never satis- 
fied with things which appear to be, or actually 
are true, if they seem common-place in character; 
and this is especially the case when superstition 
lends its influence to make out the deception. 

There can be no reasonable doubt, in any 
judicious mind, respecting the identification of 
the leading features of this vision ; and yet 
but little progress will be made toward a full 
comprehension of its moral designs, until we 
identify in history the little ham, whose char- 
acter and transactions form the principal ob- 
jects of the prediction. We have already found 
the "great horn," and it will be easy to find 
the "four notable ones" which came up in its 
place; but it was neither of these which did 
wickedly against the covenant. But these facts 
will furnish guides toward the points of evidence 
by which we hope to settle the questions which 
relate to the true history and chronology of the 
"little horn." 

We propose, in the following discussion, to 
identify the fifth horn; to explain the 66 two 
thousand and three hundred days" of verse 14 ; 
and then to show that this prophecy was liter- 
ally fulfilled before the advent of Jesus Christ, 



140 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

The corresponding points in the vision and 
the explanation of it by the angel, will be best 
seen by placing them in juxtaposition. 

8 Therefore, the he-goat 21 And the rough goat is 
waxed verv great : and when the king of Grecia : and the 

he was strong; the great horn |T eat ho ™ , tha * is between 

, , , J P . his eves is the first king, 

was broken ; and for it came 22 * Now that being bl f oken? 

up four notable ones toward whereas four stood up for it, 
the four winds of heaven. four kingdoms shall stand up 

out of the nation, but not in 

his power. 

9 And out of one of them 23 And in the latter time 
came forth a little horn, which of their kingdom, when the 
waxed exceeding great, to- transgressors are come to the 

. . , t , i full, a kins; of fierce counte- 
ward the south, and toward nance? a * d understanding 

the east, and toward the dark sentences, shall stand 
pleasant land. up. 

It being shown by the explanation of the vis- 
ion, that the goat represents the kingdom of 
i: Grecia," and the great horn "the first king" 
—by whom, as we have seen, is meant Alexan- 
der the Great — it is clear that the four horns 
succeeding him can be no other than his suc- 
cessors, who reigned in the several parts of his 
empire after its partition. Indeed, it is expressly 
declared, that the coming up of the four horns 
was intended to represent that his kingdom 
should be broken into four governments, and 
wrested from his family. 

The general facts of the history in this case 
are substantially the following: After a career 



THE VISION OF THE RAM AND HE-GOAT. 141 



of unparalleled success, through a period of six 
years, during which he conquered a large por- 
tion of the known world, Alexander died sud- 
denly, in a fit of debauch, at Babylon, in the 
thirty-third year of his age, and the thirteenth of 
his reign. Not long after his death, his king- 
dom was divided, but "not to his posterity." 
His brother Philip, w T ho for a time ruled as re- 
gent, was murdered, and as the story relates, by 
order of Olympias, Alexanders mother; and not 
long afterward, Alexander's two sons were both 
privately assassinated ; so that within fifteen 
years from the king's death, his whole family 
had become extinct. After the destruction 
of the royal family, the governors of the 
several provinces usurped the power and title 
of kings. Jealousy and ambition kept the 
empire in a state of confusion and war for 
several years ; but after the defeat and death 
of Antigonus, in the battle of Ipsus, the king- 
dom was divided, and settled into four inde- 
pendent governments. 

In the partition of the kingdom, Cassander 
held Macedonia and Greece in the west; Lysim- 
achus had Thrace and Bithynia in the north; 
Ptolemy possessed himself of Egypt in the south; 
and Seleucus took Syria in the east Thus came 



142 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



up the four notable ones toward the four winds 
of heaven, as was predicted in chapter xi, 4: 
"His kingdom shall be broken, and shall be 
divided towards the four winds of heaven; 
and not to his posterity, . . . for his king- 
dom shall be plucked up, even for others besides 
those." 

Before proceeding further with expository 
illustrations of this subject, it may be well to 
fix the general chronology of the period within 
the limits of which we are to look for this 
little horn ; for until this is done, the thoughts 
of our readers may still be riding upon the sea 
of conjecture, and no haven be reached where 
they may repose with assurance. 

The facts and evidences in the verses follow- 
ing, when justly explained, will, we think, afford 
means by which we may secure this great de- 
sideratum ; namely, the period in which this 
prophecy is verified in history, as well as also the 
matter of the verification itself. We shall itali- 
cise the parts of the quotation to which we de- 
sire the reader's special attention. 

Verse 9 : "And out of one of them came forth 
a little horn" &c. Verse 23 : "And in the lat- 
ter time of their kingdom . . . a king of fierce 
countenance, and understanding dark sentences, 



THE VISION OF THE RAM AND HE-GOAT. 143 

shall stq^d up" &c. The whole course of the 
exposition of the vision given by the angel to 
Daniel, in chapter xi, goes to show that the horn 
of verse 9, and the king of verse 23, are one and 
the same in history. 

First, then, according to the text, this little 
horn was to come up in one of the four parti' 
tions of Alexander's kingdom. And let it be 
noticed, that this condition of the case must not 
in anywise be violated by going out of the pre- 
cincts of the geographical limitations here set 
forth. 

Secondly : In verse 23 it is said, that this king 
is to arise " in the latter time of their kingdom 
that is, of the four kingdoms. 

Here, then, is evidence indicating the final 
termination of the vision ; and we cannot be al- 
lowed to go beyond that event to find the little 
horn. So then, if, as is now assumed, the subju- 
gation of the four kingdoms completes the vision, 
it follows conclusively, that the prophecy itself 
is to be verified by persons and events found 
within the period occupied by the history of the 
four governments into which Alexander's em- 
pire was broken. Herein, and before the last 
of the four kingdoms fell, we are to look for the 
" king of a fierce countenance." 



144 DANIEL VERIFIED Itf HISTORY. 

Fixing upon the date of the battle of Ipsus, 
which took place B. C. 301, as the time when 
the four horns arose, let us look down the 
current of events, and see when the four king- 
doms fell. Macedonia was the first to fall. Per- 
seus was the last king. His throne was over- 
turned B. C. 167. The kingdom of Pergamus, 
or that which was established by Lysimachus, 
was subverted B. C. 133. Syria fell B. C. 65, 
and the kingdom of the Ptolemies, surviving but 
for a short period, became a Roman province 
about thirtv vears before the birth of Jesus 
Christ. 

From the year B. C. 301, the time when the 
four horns arose, to the year B. C. 30, when the 
last of the four kingdoms fell, is a period of two 
hundred and seventy-one years. N ow, then, we 
are bounded by these dates. That is, we cannot 
go beyond them without doing violence to the 
truth and the text. It is true, these dates describe 
the extreme chronological limits of the vision. 
But, then, we cannot go beyond the year B. C. 30 
to find the horn in question, but may find it 
where we can before ascending above the year 
B. C. 301. Nor are we at liberty to go beyond 
the territorial boundaries of the history of the 
four horns, as Mr. Faber did when he traversed 



THE VISION OF THE RAM AND HE-GOAT. 145 

the wilds of Arabia to find the little horn ; nor 
as Bishop Newton did when, stirring the smoul- 
dering remains of prostrate Kome, he saw, rising 
from among its ashes and cinders, the giant 
figure and power of the papacy. 

Let us, then, turn to the eleventh chapter 
of this prophecy, in which there is an elaborate 
exposition of the symbol contained in the eighth 
chapter.* Here the history of Alexander's suc- 
cessors is prophetically delineated, and with so 
much circumstantiality, as to afford ample 
means of guiding us to the true history of the 
fifth or little horn, or the "king of a fierce 
countenance." We shall not detain the attention 
of the reader to all the minutiae of the history 
comprised in the allusions contained in the text, 
deeming it sufficient to note merely the leading 
persons and actions in the general period indi- 
cated. 

Chapter xi, 3: "A mighty king" is Alexan- 
der the Great, as is clearly shown by the de- 
scription in the fourth verse; for nothing in 
history is more clear than the partition of 
his kingdom, as described in the prophecy be- 
fore us. 

° For the reasons why no notice is here taken of chapter 
x, see analysis in the first chapter of this treatise. 



146 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



Terse 5: "The king of the south" is, without 
doubt, Ptolemy, son of Lagus, called Soter, that 
is, saviour. He was the first king of Egypt, and 
the founder of the famous library at Alexandria. 
His history need not be recited here. " One of 
his princes .... shall be strong above him." 
Dr. Clarke supposes this to have been "Seleucus 
JSTicator." But this prince was king of the north, 
and not a prince of the king of the south. A far 
more reasonable presumption is, that Ptolemy 
Philadelphia is intended by this description, for 
he was the prince of the king of the south, in 
whose favor Ptolemy Soter resigned his crown, 
after reigning in Egypt twenty years. 

Verse 6 : "'And in the end of years they shall 
join themselves together; for the king's daugh- 
ter of the south shall come to the king of the 
north to make an agreement : but she shall not 
retain the power of the arm; neither shall he 
stand, nor his arm : but she shall be given up, 
and they that brought her, and he that begat 
her, and he that strengthened her in these 
times. 55 

This, evidently, refers to the scheme by which 
the king of Egypt sought to obtain an influence 
in Syria, which he could not acquire by war. 
For although Ptolemy Philadelphus succeeded 



THE VISION OF THE RAM AND HE-GOAT. 147 

in marrying his daughter Berenice to Antiochus 
Theos, and induced him to put away his lawful 
wife and her children, yet the king of the south 
failed of success, for the king of Syria brought 
back Laodice to court, and thus frustrated the 
whole plan of the " king of the south." 

Verse 7 : " But out of a branch of her roots 
shall one stand up in his estate, which shall come 
with an army, and shall enter into the fortress 
of the king of the north, and shall deal against 
them, and shall prevail." 

The historical matter embraced in this and the 
preceding verse is so blended, that the general 
reader will better understand its relation to the 
prophetic language of the text, if we abridge the 
elaborate account which Eollin, the historian, 
gives of this branch of the general subject* As 
soon as Antiochus Theos had received intelli- 
gence of the death of Ptolemy Philadelphus, his 
father-in-law, he divorced Berenice, and recalled 
Laodice and her children. Laodice, who knew 
the variable disposition and inconstancy of An- 
tiochus, and was apprehensive that the same 
levity of mind would induce him to return to 
Berenice again, resolved to improve the present 
opportunity to secure the crown for her son. 
* Ancient History, vol. ii, p. 72, Harpers' edition. 



148 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

Her own children were disinherited by the 
treaty made with Ptolemy, by which it was also 
stipulated that the issue Berenice might have by 
Antiochus should succeed to the throne, and she 
then had a son. Laodice, therefore, caused An- 
tiochus to be poisoned ; and when she saw that he 
was dead, she placed in his bed a person named 
Arternon, who very much resembled him, both 
in features and the tone of his voice, to act the 
part she had for him. He acquitted himself 
with great dexterity, taking special care, in the 
few visits that were paid him, to recommend his 
dear Laodice and her children to the lords and 
people. In the name of Antiochus orders were 
issued, by which his eldest son, Seleucus Callini- 
cus, was appointed his successor. His death was 
then declared, upon which Seleucus peaceably 
ascended the throne, and enjoyed it for the space 
of twenty years. Laodice, not believing herself 
safe as long as Berenice and her son lived, 
concerted measures with Seleucus to destroy 
them also ; but Berenice, being informed of their 
design, escaped with her son to Daphne, where 
she shut herself up in the asylum built by Seleu- 
cus Nicator. But being at last betrayed into the 
hands of those who besieged her there, by the 
order of Laodice, first her son and then herself, 



THE VISION OF THE RAM AND HE-GOAT. 149 



with all the Egyptians who had accompanied her 
to that retreat, were murdered in the most in- 
human manner. 

"This event," says the historian, "was an ex- 
act accomplishment of what the prophet Daniel 
had foretold with relation to this marriage. ' The 
king's daughter of the south shall come to the 
king of the north to make an agreement: but she 
shall not retain the power of the arm ; neither 
shall he stand, nor his arm: but she shall be 
given up, and they that brought her, and he 
that begat her, and he that strengthened her in 
these times.' " 

The one "out of a branch of her roots," or one 
of the same family stock, who avenged her 
death, was Ptolemy Euergetes, who succeeded 
his father, Ptolemy Philaclelphus, on the throne 
of Egypt. He " came with an army " while his 
sister was shut up in Daphne, but he arriv- 
ed too late to save Berenice and her children. 
Failing to rescue his sister, Ptolemy resolved 
to avenge her cruel death. Uniting his own 
army, which he had brought from Egypt, 
with the forces which the cities of Asia Minor, 
influenced by a deep feeling of compassion for 
the unprotected Berenice, had sent, Ptolemy 
pushed on to Antioch, caused "Laodice to suf- 



150 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



fer death," and made himself master of all 
Syria and Cilicia, carrying away with him forty 
thousand talents of silver, and two thousand five 
hundred statues. Thus were fulfilled the partic- 
ulars of verses 6, 7, 8, 9. 

Verse 10: "But his sons shall be stirred up, 
and shall assemble a multitude of great forces: 
and one shall certainly come, and overflow, and 
pass through : then shall he return, and be stir- 
red up, even to his fortress." 

Dr. Clarke and Benson think that this refers 
to the sons of Callinicus, who were Seleucus 
Ceraunus and Antiochus, afterward the Great. 
Seleucus Ceraunus, or The Thunderer, did as- 
semble a vast force, and attempted to recover 
the possessions which his father had lost, but 
failed in the attempt. But " one" namely, Anti- 
ochus, who, after the death of his brother, was 
proclaimed king, did " come, and overflow, and 
pass through;" that is, he recovered back Seleu- 
cia, and, aided by Theodotus the JStolian, he 
regained Syria. 

Verse 11: "And the king of the south shall 
be moved with choler, and shall come forth and 
fight with him, even with the king of the north: 
and he shall set forth a great multitude ; but the 
multitude shall be given into his hand. 



THE VISION OF THE RAM AND HE-GOAT. 151 



"12. And when he hath taken away the mul- 
titude, his heart shall be lifted up ; and he shall 
cast down many ten thousands: but he shall not 
be strengthened by it." 

"And the king of the south, " Tins 
designates Ptolemy Philopator, the successor of 
Euergetes. Antiochus, after the successes be- 
fore mentioned, had advanced near the borders 
of Egypt, at which Ptolemy, having become 
alarmed, bestirred himself earnestly to op- 
pose the threatened invasion. He met and con- 
quered the conqueror. Antiochus, with his 
" multitude of great forces," was overthrown, and 
obliged to retreat to Antioch. 

Verse 13 : " For the kino- cf the north shall 
return, and shall set forth a multitude greater 
than the former, and shall certainly come after 
certain years with a great army and much 
riches." 

"For the king of the north shall return." 
This was the second attempt upon Egypt, if we 
may infer a design upon it at the time of the 
battle near Eaphia, to which allusion was made 
in the last paragraph. This occurred fourteen 
years previous to the date of the transaction now 
under consideration. Antiochus ^as now to be 
assisted by Philip of Macedon and others. (See 



152 



DANIEL VERIFIED US 7 HISTORY. 



verse 14.) We hardly need recite here the evo- 
lutions of diplomacy, related in the seventeenth 
verse, which, failing to give Antiochus his de- 
sire upon Egypt, resulted at last in compelling 
him, after his signal defeat in the battle of 
Raphia, to retire to Syria and sue for peace; 
for our object is not so much to detail the 
history of the times, as, by indicating our path 
in history, to find the "king of fierce coun- 
tenance." 

After the death of Antiochus, (alluded to 
in verse 19,) arose the famous "raiser of 
taxes" (verse 20,) who "w T ithin few days" was 
to "be destroyed, neither in anger, nor in 
battle." This could be no other than Seleucus 
Philopator, the son and successor of Antiochus. 
Seleucus, upon his accession to the throne, 
found an empty treasury, and was greatly em- 
barrassed to pay the balance of the fifteen thou- 
sand talents, which his father had agreed to pay 
as the price of peace. Perhaps not daring to 
tax further his already overburdened people, 
he sent Heliodorus, his treasurer, to Jerusalem, 
" the glory of the kingdom," to seize the money 
which was deposited in the temple. The 
treasurer basely murdered the king, in hope, 
doubtless, of securing the throne to himself ; so 



THE VISION OF THE BAM AjSD HE-GOAT. 153 



he was " destroyed, neither in anger, nor in 
battle." 

Now, then, if the foregoing sketch from history 
fulfils the prophecy, we have come to a point in 
the line of evidence by which we are enabled 
to identify the fifth horn, or the "king of 
fierce countenance," with positive certainty. 
And as most of the details of this prophecy 
blend with the history of this king, there is little 
necessity to pursue further the evidence in the 
case. In fact, the history of this person occu- 
pies the remaining portion of this revelation, 
at least until he is seen coming "to his end, 
and none shall help him." (Verse 45.) 

Here, then, we fairly meet the question, 
Who is this vile person ? or, which is the same 
thing, Who succeeded Seleucus Philopator ? for 
the same actions which are attributed to the 
? horn" in the vision, are alleged against the 
"king" in the interpretation, of the vision, show- 
ing that the actor in both cases is the same per- 
son. And we see no possible way of escaping 
either the fact of identit} T now asserted, or the 
inevitable conclusion to which its admission will 
lead. Certain it is, that the "little horn" was 
to arise out of one of the partitions of Alexan- 
der's kingdom, and before the subjugation of 



151 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



them ; and as all of them were uprooted thirty 
years before Christ, we are forced to the conclu- 
sion that the history which fulfils this prophecy 
antedates the birth of the Messiah. And, besides, 
the "king of fierce countenance" was to be, in 
historical order, the immediate successor of the 
"raiser of taxes." But we know, by indubitable 
historical evidence, that Antiochus IV. was the 
successor of Seleucus Philopator, and that he 
came to the throne of Syria about the year 
B. C. 175. This was at least eight years before 
the fall of Macedonia, and strictly verifies the 
prophecy, which says that he should arise in the 
latter time of their kingdom, (chapter ix, 23,) and 
that he should come out of one of them, (chapter 
viii, 9.) Here, then, is a clear, and, we think, full 
identification of the little horn, both in the per- 
sonal, geographical, and political lines of suc- 
cession from Alexander the Great. We are led, 
then, or rather forced, by the evidence in the case, 
to the person and history of Antiochus Epipha- 
nes for the fulfilment of this remarkable pre- 
diction. 

Let us turn, now, to the prophetical sketch of 
this personage by the interpreting angel, and 
inquire if the history and conduct of this "mad- 
man" fills up the outline which prophecy has 



THE VISION OF THE KAM AND HE-GOAT. 155 



drawn of him. And it will be sufficient for all 
argumentative purposes, that we give a general 
statement of the facts to which allusion is made 
in the text. 

In chapter viii, verses 9 to 12 * inclusive, is a 
symbolical delineation of the character and 
transactions of the little horn, the prophetical 
interpretation of which, connecting him w T ith 
history under the title of a vile person, is drawn 
out in detail in the eleventh chapter, beginning 
at the twenty-first verse, and thence to the end 
of the chapter. 

" They did not give him the honour of the 
kingdom" Because it did not belong to him by 
right of birth or succession. The right to the 
crown was in Demetrius, his nephew, who was at 
the time a hostage in Rome. The manner in 
which he obtained the government shows, in 
part, his vileness. At the time of his brother 
Selencus's death, Antiochus was in Rome, or 
rather returning from it to Syria, and learning 
that Heliodorus, his brother's general, had gath- 
ered around him a strong party, intending to 
usurp the throne, he applied to Eumenes, king 
of Pergamus, and to Attalus his brother, for as- 
sistance, and having expelled Heliodorus, they 

° See the text at the beginning of chapter. 



156 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



gave the throne to Antiochus. So that it was 
by flattery and usurpation that he obtained the 
government. 

The "little horn waxed exceeding great, to- 
ward the south, and toward the east, and toward 
the pleasant land." (Chap, viii, 9.) 

"Toicarcl the south" This was explained to 
Daniel by the angel in chapter xi, 25-27. It 
describes the first expedition of Antiochus into 
Egypt, which was made during the minority of 
Ptolemy Philometor. The occasion of it was 
substantially the following: Cleopatra, the queen 
regent, was sister to Antiochus, and during her 
lifetime had preserved at least a formal friend- 
ship between the two governments. But upon 
her death the regency was undertaken by 
Lenseus, a nobleman of great distinction, while 
the young king was intrusted to the educational 
care of a eunuch called Eulesus. These digni- 
taries, not liking the policy which the queen 
had pursued, and possibly influenced by fam- 
ily considerations, resolved upon demanding of 
Antiochus the surrender of Ccelo-Syria and 
Palestine to the crown of Egypt, both of which 
had been wrested from it by Antiochus the 
Great. In the struggle which ensued, Egypt 
was humbled and Antiochus triumphed. (See 



THE VISION OF THE RAM AND HE-GOAT. 157 



Prideaux's Conn., vol. ii., p. 109 ; and also 
1 Mac. i, 16-19.) 

"Toward the east" This refers to his trans- 
actions in Armenia and Persia, for which see 
Rollin's History of Alexander's successors. 

"And toward the pleasant land." This is 
the divine designation of Palestine. (See Psa. 
cvi, 24; Jer. iii, 19.) In chapter xi, 28, it is 
said in explanation, that the vile persorfs 
" heart shall be against the holy covenant; and 
he shall do exploits." 

The cause of this terrible outbreak against the 
Jews was this : During his invasion of Egypt, 
a report was spread through Palestine that 
Antiochus was dead. Jason, who had pro- 
cured the office of high priest by bribery, 
having been supplanted by the perfidious Mene- 
laus, who gave a larger bonus for the office, 
thought this a good occasion to recover it. Ac- 
cordingly, collecting a small force, he marched 
to Jerusalem, and expelled his brother by the 
assistance of partisans whom he found in the 
city. The news of these transactions coming to 
the ears of Antiochus Epiphanes, coupled with a 
report that Jerusalem had made great rejoicings 
upon hearing of his death, he became greatly 
exasperated, and resolved upon signal vengeance 



158 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



for this alleged outrage. With forced marches he 
was quickly before the city, laid siege to it, and 
took it. During the three days in which it 
was abandoned to the soldiery, eighty thousand 
men were inhumanly butchered, forty thousand 
taken prisoners, and about forty thousand more 
were sold to the nations around them. This 
was the occasion of that dark picture of grief 
and anguish drawn in 1 Maccabees i, 25-28 : 
" Therefore there was great mourning in Israel 
in everyplace where they were. So the princes 
and elders mourned, the virgins and young men 
were made feeble, and the beauty of woman was 
changed. Every bridegroom took up lamenta- 
tion, and she that sat in the marriage chamber 
was in heaviness." 

But as if this was not enough to glut his rage, 
he proudly and profanely entered the temple — 
nay, the holy place! — polluting it; and then, 
adding sacrilege to profanity, he plundered the 
house of God of its golden altar of incense, its 
table, and its golden candlesticks and branches, 
and having appointed officers of foreign birth for 
the people, he left for his home. 

Whoever wishes to see the complete history of 
these transactions can find it in Maccabees, and 
in book xii of Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews. 



THE VISION OF THE RAM AND HE-GOAT. 159 

It is not necessary to pursue the verification 
of these prophetical disclosures further, as our 
expositions have proceeded sufficiently far al- 
ready to show that the fifth horn arose before 
the fall of either of the kingdoms which were 
established upon the breaking up of Alexander's 
empire, and which were foreshown by the com- 
ing up of the four horns "toward the four winds • 
of heaven." Although the history of this "vile 
person" is continued to the end of the eleventh 
chapter, the points material to our argument 
are already gained; for if the "raiser of taxes" 
mentioned in verse 20, was Seleucus Philopator, 
then the vile person who stood "in his estate," 
and is the fifth horn, was Antiochus Epiphanes, 
and in his personal history we are to look for 
the fufilment of the entire prophecy concern- 
ing the little horn. But as we have not yet 
quite come to the chronology of the matter con- 
tained in chapter viii, 10-14, and explained in 
chapter xi, 30, 31, we will extend our sketch a 
little further. Antiochus had not yet taken 
away the daily sacrifice, nor perpetrated those 
vile and malicious actions which were dis- 
closed to the mind of the prophet in vision. 
Before these acts of vileness, Antiochus made 
another assault upon Egypt, (xi, 29,) but, as 



160 DANIEL VERIFIED IK HISTORY. 

the history shows, an unfortunate one for 
himself. 

It had been the policy of Antiochus to widen 
the breach between the brothers Philometor and 
Euergetes, who were in rivalry for the throne, 
and had implored the aid of Eome in settling 
their disputes. When Antiochus approached 
Egypt, instead of finding that the brothers were 
wasting each other in war, he found they had 
laid aside their animosity, and were reigning 
jointly, emulous only for their mutual safety and 
success. But what made this expedition the more 
disastrous to Antiochus was, that he met at 
Alexandria the legates from the Roman Senate, 
whose influence had been solicited to aid in set- 
tling the right to the crown of Egypt. When 
the artful Syrian came to salute Popilius and 
his associates, letters from the Roman Senate 
were delivered to him, in which he was com- 
manded, upon pain of its displeasure, to termin- 
ate this war upon his nephews. Antiochus hesi- 
tated, and desired time to consider the question. 
The commissioners were inexorable in their de- 
mand for an immediate and categorical answer. 
History says that Popilius " took his staff and 
drew a circle round Antiochus, on the sand 
where he stood, and commanded him not to 



THE VISION OF THE RAM AND HE-GOAT. 161 



pass that circle till he had given an answer." 
Antiochus, subdued by the iron Koman, promised 
to "do whatever the senate enjoined" Thus 
was his descent upon Egypt " not as the for- 
mer or as the latter " time. The great dis- 
appointment which he felt under his mortify- 
ing failure in Egypt served, apparently, to 
heighten his "indignation against the holy cov- 
enant" His fury against the Jews now broke 
forth with redoubled rage. Immediately upon 
his return to Antioch, Antiochus detached 
Apollonius with twenty-two thousand men to 
Jerusalem, with instruction to require all Jews to 
conform to the Greek religion. Terrible scenes 
of carnage ensued. Multitudes of the people 
perished, the city was plundered, its walls were 
destroyed, and every sacred thing polluted with 
heathen hands. In this work of desolation An- 
tiochus received assistance "from them that for- 
sook the holy covenant " (verse 30,) for Menelaus, 
heading the apostate Jews, who joined with 
the Syrians, added greatly to the miseries of 
their countrymen. (See 1 Maccab. i, 41-64 ; 
vi, 1-9.) 

We are now come to the matter of the two 
thousand three hundred days; that is, in the 
order of time and narration, We do not feel it 

11 



I 

162 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

necessary to dwell longer upon the general de- 
tails of the prophecy, or their verifications in 
history. Our purpose has not been to give a full 
exegesis of the book of Daniel, but rather a 
general argument to fix the chronology of the 
various predictions contained in it ; for the 
chronology is the material point, and must settle 
the question concerning the history which ful- 
fils the predictions in a given case. Now, it 
having been shown that this vision extended 
only from the beginning of the conflict between 
the ram and the he-goat, to the fall of the last 
surviving partition of Alexander's kingdom — a 
period of two hundred and seventy-one years — > 
we are shut up to the history comprised in 
that period for the fulfilment of these predic- 
tions. 

"We enter, therefore, upon the discussion of 
the matter contained in chapter viii, 13, 14, 
without any fears that we are out of the proper 
country or period of time, in which to search 
for positive evidence to determine the true 
meaning of this vision. 

The three material points to be considered by 
the reader are : First, the subject-matter of the 
angel's colloquy; secondly, the period of 
time represented by the "two thousand and 



THE VISION OF THE EAM AND HE-GOAT. 163 

three hundred;" and, thirdly, the evidence 
which shows that this prophecy is verified in 
history hefore the advent of Jesus Christ 

The answer " unto two thousand and 
three hundred" the reader will notice, must 
be interpreted in strict conformity with the 
subject-matter of the question. To give it any 
other sense, or any wider application, would be 
a palpable violation of all valid canons of inter- 
pretation. If the question of the angel relates 
to general and indefinite matters, the answer may 
be equally indeterminate. But if the question 
is specific, the answer must be limited by the 
specification. If the question relates to the ser- 
vices of the Jewish temple, and to the interrup- 
tion of its sacrifices at a given time, the answer 
can relate to nothing else than to the time in 
which those services were interfered with by 
the order of the little horn. 

Mr. Wintle translates the clause thus: "How 
long will oe the term of the vision of the daily 
sacrifice, and the transgression that maketh des- 
olate, exposing loth the sanctuary and the host 
to he trampled upon?" The plain sense of the 
passage then is this : The angel asks his fellow- 
angel how long the sacrifice will be interrupted; 
and, for the information of Daniel, he answers, 



164 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

6 'Unto two thousand and three hundred even- 
ing, morning;" not days. It seems, therefore, 
clear, that the answer relates to the number of 
the sacrifices interrupted, rather than to the 
length of the period during which the Jews suf- 
fered this evil, only as the frequency or infre- 
quency of the celebration of the sacrifices may 
determine the question of time. Happily, how- 
ever, we are not left to mere conjecture upon 
this point. It is the "daily" sacrifice that is 
spoken of as being "taken away," and not the 
annual or the lunar offerings, (verse 11.) But 
the text goes even further in its evidence upon 
this point. It is not only the "daily," but the 
"evening morning" sacrifice; that is, the sac- 
rifice which was offered every morning, and 
repeated every evening. ISTow the number in- 
terrupted, as shown by the answer, is " two thou- 
sand and three hundred." If, then, we divide 
the whole number of sacrifices by the number 
that were offered daily, we shall learn how 
long "the vision of the daily" continued. So, 
then, if we divide two thousand and three hun- 
dred by two, we have eleven hundred and fifty 
days, as the whole period during which the daily 
sacrifice was taken away : or otherwise express- 
ed, the daily offerings of the temple were sus- 



THE VISION OF THE RAM AND HE- GOAT. 165 



pended for a period of three years and seventy 
days, reckoning three hundred and sixty clays for 
a year. 

This exposition of the word " daily" is au- 
thorized by the use of this term in other places 
in the Scriptures. In the Levitical law it was 
required that the priest should offer "the tenth 
part of an ephah of fine flour for a meat-offering 
perpetually, half of it in the morning, and half 
thereof at night " (Lev. vi, 20.) In Juimb. iv, 16, 
and again, xxix, 6, alluding to this general 
statute, it is called "the daily meat-offering," 
and in the latter text the "'"daily burnt-offering." 
These offerings were made in the morning and 
in the evening of each day. The perpetual sacri- 
fice is then the same with the daily, and these 
sacrifices were made at evening and morning. 
Look now at the case, as it stands, in the order 
of the vision and the revelation. The prophet 
sa?w the little horn desolating the holy city 
and people, and the temple and worship of 
the living God. While the prophet was ago- 
nizing under the foresight of this profanity and 
sacrilege, the angel inquires, in his hearing, 
how long the vision concerning the " daily " 
shall last, and is answered, "unto two thou- 
sand and three hundred." Now can there be 



166 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



reasonable grounds to hesitate in confining the 

answer to the limitation necessarily given in 
the specific subject of the question? We think 
not ; for not only do the terms of the text itself 
require this exposition, but the periods when 
the sanctuary should be cleansed, and the vile 
power which should pollute it be subdued, are 
distinctly and separately stated in the revela- 
tion made to Daniel concerning them ; (see 
chapter xii, 7, 11, 12 ;*) hence, the two thou- 
sand and three hundred must conform to the 
general history of the subject. 

But are there facts in history to sustain this 
exposition of the text? We think there are; 
and they are facts relevant and conclusive. An- 
tiochus did take away the daily sacrifice. This 
will not be denied. But did he take it away 
for eleven hundred and fifty days? Let us con- 
sider the testimony in the case. It is true, 
the exact elates are not given ; but there is so 
much evidence upon the point, that no reason- 
able doubt can remain concerning the exact 
length of the period in question. 

First, then : W e have the date of the cleans- 
ing of the sanctuary. It is given in 1 Mac. iv, 

° For a particular explanation of these several periods, see 
the next chapter. 



THE VISION OF THE RAM AND HE-GOAT. 167 



52, 53 : "Now on the five and twentieth day of 
the ninth month, which is called the month Cas- 
leu, in the hundred and forty-eighth year, they 
rose up by times in the morning, and offered sac- 
rifices according to the law, upon the new altar 
of burnt-offerings which they had made." The 
date here given is reckoned from the era of the 
Seleucidse, w T hich began B. C. 311, and, accord- 
ingly, it would be B. C. 163. This, then, would 
be the time when the vision concerning the 
daily would end. 

Secondly. But when did it begin? for we are 
to reckon back eleven hundred and fifty days. 
1 Maccabees i, 54, 59, gives another date, which, 
although it does not furnish the exact period 
of the talcing away the daily, will nevertheless 
help us to approximate the point of evidence 
now sought. "Now the fifteenth day of the 
month Casleu, in the hundred and forty and 
fifth year, they set up the abomination of deso- 
lation upon the altar, and builded idol altars 
throughout the cities of Jucla on every side. 
Now the five and twentieth day of the month 
they [the heathen] did sacrifice upon the idol 
altar which v/as upon the altar of God." Our 
readers will observe that the " abomination of 
desolation" was set up upon the altar on the 



168 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

fifteenth of Casleu, in the hundred and forty- 
fifth year. This would be just three years and 
ten days previous to the end, or the cleansing of 
the sanctuary ; or it is ten hundred and ninety of 
the eleven hundred and fifty days which we are 
trying to find. We yet want sixty days to com- 
plete the period of the two thousand and three 
hundred "evening, morning" which were in- 
terrupted. Here, we allow, the figures fail 
us: but facts do not; and facts are stubborn 
things, and often contain the most cogent logic. 
Let us see, then, what purpose they will answer 
us in this case. In Daniel xii, 11, we have 
evidence that the decrees went forth simulta- 
neously to take away the daily, and set up the 
abomination of desolation. These decrees were 
issued at Antioch, but were not executed by 
the king in person, for he had gone into Per- 
sia to replenish his exhausted treasury. The 
execution of the order — an order that the 
Jews should obey " the laws and rites of the 
strangers in the land," (1 Mac. i, 41-49) — wa3 
committed to Apollonius, one of his principal 
generals. This decree met with resistance, and 
was only submitted to when further resistance 
was useless. Now, can any reasonable man 
imagine that less than sixty days would be re- 



THE VISION OF THE RAM AND HE-GOAT. 169 



quired for Apollonins to come with his forces 
from Syria to Jerusalem, and subdue an in- 
censed people — to take down God's altar, and 
remodel the arrangements and furniture of the 
temple — to construct an image of Jupiter Olym- 
pus, and build him an altar, and prepare the 
decorations of a heathen temple — and especially 
as, after the idol had been put upon its altar, it 
took ten days to prepare for the festival of its 
instalment in the temple of the living God? 
But every one must see that the daily would 
be interrupted at once upon the arrival of the 
king's agent, and, of course, while these prep- 
arations were going on. Here, then, without 
drawing upon our fancy, we account for the 
sixty days deficient, by showing that they 
would be required to accomplish the things 
which are known to have occurred prepara- 
tory to the setting up of the " abomination of 
desolation." So, then, the fact is made appar- 
ent, that the K daily" was taken away about 
the first of October ', in the hundred and forty- 
fifth year, between which date, and that given 
in 1 Mace, iv, 52, 53, as the time when the 
daily sacrifice was resumed, the interval is just 
the eleven hundred and fifty days required to 
fulfil the prediction. 



170 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



It has been thought by some, who have seen 
that the two thousand three hundred could not 
represent that number of years, that proba- 
bly days were intended by this designation. A 
very few words will, however, be sufficient to 
show that this cannot be the sense of the pas- 
sage ; for, if we take the two thousand three 
hundred to represent days, it would make six 
years and three hundred and forty days, or 
tvjenty days less than seven years. Now, from 
the one hundred and forty-third year, the time 
when Antiochus first invaded Judea, (1 Mac. i, 
20,) to the cleansing of the sanctuary, or even to 
the date of his death, which occurred in the one 
hundred and forty-ninth year, (1 Mac. vi, 16,) 
we have a period of a little more than Jive years. 
To understand these numbers, therefore, to mean 
days, greatly increases the difficulty of gaining a 
satisfactory result. The whole history of Antio- 
chus's operations in Judea occupied much less 
time than the period which is made by this 
exegetical hypothesis. 

But let the two thousand three hundred rep- 
resent the number of the sacrifices interrupted, 
and the history fulfils the prophecy, and none 
of these absurdities are involved. The interpret- 
ation which we have adopted will be corrobo^ 



THE VISION OF THE RAM AND HE-GOAT. 171 



rated by the expositions of the other periods 
contained in this prophecy. For these the read- 
er is referred to the ensuing chapter. 

A brief recapitulation of the points made, and 
which we think are proved, will end our argu- 
ment upon this portion of the prophecy. 

1. We have shown that the little horn is no 
other, and nothing more, than a Syrian king ; 
that he is included among the successors of 
Alexander; that he came out of one of the 
"four notable ones " winch arose upon Alexan- 
der's death; and that he arose 66 -in the latter 
time of their kingdom" but before the fail of 
either. 

2. We have shown that Antiochus Epiphanes 
succeeded the "raiser of taxes that his char- 
acter and transactions fill up the description 
which the angel gave of the little horn, or the 
"Icing of fierce countenance^ and that he com- 
mitted such depredations upon the chosen people, 
temple, and its services, as are described in the 
vision and prophecy. And, 

3. That the phrase " two thousand and three 
hundred," being employed to represent the 
number of sacrifices which were interrupted 
by the order and violence of Antiochus, can, 



172 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



of course, have no true interpretation but such 
as will conform to his history. Consequently, 
any constructions put upon this designation 
which make the period longer than the contin- 
uance of his history, or, rather, the history of 
his transactions in Judea, cannot be true. 

Finally. It is scarcely necessary to add, that 
having shown that this prophecy was fulfilled 
during the time, and by the acts of the monster 
Antiochus Epiphanes, nothing more is required 
to prove that this prediction was accomplished 
before the advent of Jesus Christ. We pass, there- 
fore, to the discussion of some general topics con- 
nected with the prophetic matter of the symbol of 
the Earn and He-Goat, and to a fuller explana- 
tion of the periods named in the twelfth chapter. 



THE PERIODS OF CHAPTER TWELVE. 173 



CHAPTER V. 

THE PERIODS OF CHAPTER TWELVE. 

THE PERIODS OF CHAPTER XII — THE RESURRECTION OF VERSE 
SECOND EXPLAINED — TIME, TIMES, AND THE DIVIDING OF 
TIME THE TWELVE HUNDRED AND NINETY DAYS — THE THIR- 
TEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FIVE DAYS TERMINATING UPON THE 
NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE OF THE JEWS — DANIEL'S RETURN TO 
JERTJ SALEM — CON CLUSION. 

The close of the last chapter brought us to the 
cleansing of the sanctuary. This, according to the 
historian, (1 Mac, iv, 52,) took place on the 25th 
of the month Casleu, in the one hundred and 
forty-eighth year, or in the year B. C. 163. 
This event constitutes the terminus ad quern of 
the two thousand three hundred evening and 
morning sacrifices. Before proceeding to ex- 
plain the several periods of time mentioned in 
this chapter, let us turn back to the eighth chap- 
ter, and briefly review some points relating to 
the vision of the Earn and He-Goat. 

When Daniel bad seen this vision, he clearly 
understood that some great calamity was to be- 



174 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

fall Ins people. But he did not understand the 
particular time when that desolation should 
come. This doubt, together with the over- 
whelming nature and extent of the affliction 
which he saw approaching, was the occasion of 
the fasting and sickness of which he speaks 
in chapter viii, 27. 

Although, for a time, his troubles appear to 
have been partially forgotten amid the confusion 
occasioned by the overthrow of the Chaldean 
monarchy, and the reconstruction of the national 
forms and policy under the victorious Persian, 
together with the multiplied duties which devolv- 
ed upon Daniel as prime minister, yet scarcely 
had the Jews been made over to their new 
master, when it occurred to Daniel that his 
countryman, Jeremiah, had prophesied that God 
would remember them, and that, when the seven- 
ty years of desolation had been accomplished 
upon Jerusalem, he would punish the king of 
Babylon, (Jer. xxv, 11, 12,) and perform his good 
word unto them, and cause them to return unto 
their own land, (Jer. xxix, 10.) These predic- 
tions he had seen fulfilled, in part. The king of 
Babylon had been humbled. But, alas ! the de- 
liverance of his people had not come. They 
were still in bondage. They had only passed 



THE PERIODS OF CHAPTER TWELVE. 175 



out of the hand of one master into the power of 
another. What treatment they were to receive 
at the hands of their new lord, it was impossible 
to tell. It was under the influence of these 
painful and perplexing circumstances that the 
vision at Elam came up before his thoughts 
again ; and although about fifteen years had 
passed away since the troubles foreshadowed 
were recalled, they now affect him with an 
anguish scarcely less overpowering. His for- 
mer anxiety returned upon his heart with a 
weight almost sufficient to crush his expectation 
of their deliverance. In hope of finding some 
relief in this great perplexity, he eagerly sought 
the prophetic scroll of Jeremiah. We can al- 
most see the heaving of his breast, as his heart 
swells, both with hope and fear, while glancing 
over the heaven-illumined pages of the twenty- 
fifth and twenty -ninth chapters of that memora- 
ble prophecy. 

It was under the influence of these mingled feel- 
ings of hope and fear, intensified by what he read 
in the book of the prophet, and also by having 
seen the overthrow of Babylon, that he i; set his 
face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and 
supplication, with fasting, and sackcloth and 
ashes," and to confess his sins and the sins of his 



176 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

people. (See Daniel, chapter ix, 3-19.) While 
Daniel was agonizing in prayer, the angel Ga- 
briel came to him, and talked with him, and 
revealed the whole "matter" and explained the 
" vision" Let us, then, in the first place, inquire, 
what is the "matter" to which the angel refers? 
and, secondly, to what " vision" does he allude? 
We shall be obliged to rely upon two circum- 
stances to guide us in seeking the answer to our 
first question. First, the occasion and matter 
of Daniel's prayer; and, secondly, the subject- 
matter of the answer to his prayer. 

In relation to the former he says, (chapter 
ix, 2,) that "in the first year of his [Darius's] 
reign, I Daniel understood by books the num- 
ber of the years, whereof the word of the Lord 
came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would 
accomplish seventy years in the desolations of 
Jerusalem." Those seventy years had passed; 
but he would say, when is the deliverance ? Is 
this captivity to be prolonged ? And although 
the angel which had explained the vision of the 
ram and goat, had told him (chapter viii, 26) that 
that vision was "for many days;" that it was not 
to be fulfilled in his lifetime ; yet, fearing that the 
sins of his people might have determined God 
to prolong their captivity, he prayed and fasted 



THE PERIODS OF CHAPTER TWELVE. 177 



before God, as if by repentance he hoped to turn 
away the fierceness of his anger. Daniel, then, 
was anxious, mostly, to know whether what 
he had seen in the vision would protract their 
stay in Babylon, and hinder the fulfilment of 
Jeremiah's prediction. The answer, then, if ap- 
propriate to the prayer, would go to say no, and 
this is the sense of the answer, as all must see. 

Chapter ix: "24. Seventy weeks are deter- 
mined upon thy people and upon thine holy city, 
to finish the transgression, and to make an end 
of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, 
and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and 
to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint 
the Most Holy. 

"25. Know therefore and understand, that 
from the going forth of the commandment to 
restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah 
the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore 
and two weeks : the street shall be built again, 
and the wall, even in troublous times. 

"26. And after threescore and two weeks shall 
Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the 
people of the prince that shall come shall destroy 
the city and the sanctuary ; and the end thereof 
shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the 
war desolations are determined. 



178 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



" 27. And he shall confirm the covenant with 
many for one week : and in the midst of the 
week he shall cause the sacrifice and the obla- 
tion to cease, and for the overspreading of abom- 
inations, he shall make it desolate, even until 
the consummation, and that determined shall be 
poured upon the desolate. 5 ' 

This reference to the time of Messiah was 
to show Daniel that his people would return 
to their own land, and that the vision of 
the ram and goat would not delay their return. 
There is so general an agreement among ex- 
positors in their opinions respecting the mean- 
ing and application of these seventy weeks, that 
there is little occasion for further discussion 
of this particular point. We shall content our- 
selves with quoting a few paragraphs from 
Prideaux's Connexions : 

"I. This prophecy doth relate primarily and 
especially to the Jews. For it expresseth the 
time that was determined upon the people of 
Daniel, that is, the Jews, and upon the holy 
city, that is, J erusalem, the whole of which was 
seventy weeks; that is, that this was the time 
which God had foreordained and determined 
upon the Jews for their being his peculiar peo- 
ple, and upon Jerusalem for its being his holy 



THE PERIODS -OF CHAPTER TWELVE. 179 



city ; after the expiration of which, an end being 
put to the ilosaic economy, they should be no 
longer God's peculiar people, and the worship 
which he had established at Jerusalem being to 
be abolished, that city should be no longer a city 
holy unto him. 

" II. These seventy weeks are weeks of 
years; for among the Jews, as there were Sab- 
batical days, whereby their days were divided 
into weeks of days, so these Sabbatical years, 
whereby their years were divided into weeks of 
years ; and this last sort is that which is here 
mentioned, so that every one of the weeks of 
this prophecy contains seven years, and the 
whole number of seventy weeks contain four 
hundred and ninety years, at the end whereof 
this determined time expired ; after which the 
Jews were no more to be the peculiar people of 
God, nor Jerusalem his holy city, because then 
the economy which he had established among 
them was to cease, and the worship which he 
had appointed at Jerusalem was wholly to be 
abolished. And, 

C *]H. All this was accomplished at the death 
of Christ; for then the Jewish Church and the 
Jewish worship at Jerusalem were wholly abol- 
ished, and the Christian Church and the Chris- 



180 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



tian worship succeeded in their stead ; then the 
time which was determined upon the Jews for 
their being God's peculiar people, and upon 
Jerusalem for its being his holy city, being fully 
expired, thenceforth began the kingdom of the 
Messiah ; and, instead of the Jews, all the na- 
tions of the world were called thereunto, and 
instead of Jerusalem, every place through the 
whole earth, where God should be worshipped in 
spirit and in truth, was made holy unto him.- 
And therefore, then, the seventy weeks of this 
prophecy must have their ending: for they were 
determined and decreed for this purpose ; and 
therefore in this they must have their conclu- 
sion. 

"IT. The end of these weeks being thus fixed 
at the death of Christ, it doth necessarily deter- 
mine us where to place the beginning of them, 
that is, four hundred and ninety years before. 
And, therefore, the death of Christ, as most 
learned men agree, falling in the year of the 
Julian period 4,74:6, and in the Jewish month 
Nisan, if we reckon four hundred and ninety 
years backward, this will lead us up to the 
month lusan, in the year of the Julian period 
4,256, which was the very year and month in 
° Lev. xxv, 8. 



THE PERIODS OF CHAPTER TWELVE. 181 

which Ezra* had his commission from Artax- 
erxes Longimanus, king of Persia, for his return 
to Jerusalem, there to restore the Church and 
the state of the Jews; for that year of the Julian 
period, according to Ptolemy's canon, was the 
seventh year of that king's reign, f in which the 
Scriptures tell us his commission was granted. 
The beginning, therefore, of the seventy weeks, 
or four hundred and ninety years of this proph- 
ecy, was in the month Nisan of the Jewish year, 
in the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, 
king of Persia, and in the four thousand two 
hundred and fifty-sixth year of the Julian pe- 
riod, in which very year and very month Christ 
our Lord suffered for us, and thereby completed 
the whole work of our salvation, there being just 
seventy weeks of years, or four hundred and nine- 
ty years from one to the other." — Part i, Book v. 

This exposition of the " seventy weeks" made 
by the angel, answers the question relating to 
the early return of the Jews, and shows that the 
divine promise given through Jeremiah would 
be fulfilled agreeably to the tenor of it. Having 
thus allayed Daniel's fears in relation to the 
"matter" of the prophecy of Jeremiah, he next 
proceeds to explain the "vision" in relation to the 
e Ezra vii, 9. t Ezra vii, 11-26. 



182 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



sanctuary, its cleansing after the desolation of it, 
the destruction of the " little horn," and the de- 
liverance of "his people" at "the time of the endP 

The general progress of these events has been 
explained in the preceding chapter. We shall 
pass on, therefore, to the twelfth chapter of the 
prophecy, and explain some of its phraseology, 
and the designations of periods of time therein 
mentioned. Let lis take for our standpoint 
what is said in the first three verses of the 
twelfth chapter. 

Chapter xii: "1. And at that time shall Mi- 
chael stand up, the great prince which standeth 
for the children of thy people : and there shall 
be a time of trouble, such as never was since 
there was a nation even to that same time : and 
at that time thy people shall be delivered, every 
one that shall be found written in the book. 

" 2. And many of them that sleep in the dust 
of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, 
and some to shame and everlasting contempt. 

"3. And they that be wise shall shine as the 
brightness of the firmament ; and they that turn 
many to righteousness, as the stars forever and 
ever." 

"And at that time" (verse 1.) What time? 
The answer to this question is given in the 



THE PERIODS OF CHAPTER TWELVE. 183 



last verse of the preceding chapter. It was the 
time when the " little horn," the " vile person," 
the "king of fierce countenance," should "come 
to his end, and none shall help him." "At that 
time shall Michael stand up ... . and thy 
people shall be delivered, every one that shall 
be found written in the book." 

The death of Antiochus, then, determines the 
"ti?ne" of the deliverance of Daniel's people. 
According to 1 Maccabees vi, 16, he "died there 
in the hundred forty and ninth year." The res- 
urrection spoken of in verse 2, therefore, must be 
the political resurrection of the Jews, for it syn- 
chronizes with the fall of their persecutor. But 
as much of the succeeding exposition and argu- 
ment is intimately related to the circumstances 
referred to in these three verses, it is necessary 
that we dwell upon them sufficiently long to 
justify the explanation now suggested. "The 
book," awaking from "the dust," the "ever- 
lasting life," the "everlasting contempt," are 
phrases so commonly associated with the filial 
judgment^ that very many honest people ' have 
made these verses proof-texts of this doctrine of 
revelation. Let us see, then, how the case stands. 

"The book," "thy book," and "my book," 
do not necessarily mean the booh of the final 



184 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

judgment. Clearly they do not mean this in 
Exodus xxxii, 32, 33,* unless we can suppose 
Moses is praying to be sent to the perdition of 
hell. Perhaps Numbers xi, 14, 15,f will explain 
the phrase as used by Moses. Here, in fact, he 
says that he would rather die than live, if God 
should not assist him in conducting the people. 
May not the phrase " the hook" be explained by 
Isaiah iv, 3, in which it is said, "Every one thai 
is written among the living in Jerusalem?" If, 
then, this is a true parallel, the meaning of Dan- 
iel's words is merely this : those who survived 
the slaughter by sword and famine, and who 
had not gone into captivity again, should, upon 
the death of the fierce king, be delivered from 
these oppressions and cruelties. 

But it may be objected, that this awaking is 
out of the "dust" and " to everlasting life " and 
"everlasting contempt ;" and, therefore, the pre- 
diction cannot have had its fulfilment at the time 
of the death of Antiochus Epiphanes ; and hence 

f " Yet now, if thou wilt, forgive their sin: and if not, blot 
me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written. And 
the Lord said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, 
him will I blot out of my book." 

t " I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is 
too heavy for me. And if thou deal thus with me, kill me, I 
pray thee, out of hand, if I have found favour in thy sight ; 
and let me not see my wretchedness/' 



THE PEKIODS OF CHAPTER TWELVE. 185 

a meaning must be attributed to these verses 
which will conform to these verbal conditions of 
the text. But this is begging the question, so far 
as this passage is concerned, for it is clear that 
the text and context relate to the deliverance of 
Daniel's people from the power and tyranny of 
the "little horn;" and, besides, there is no ward 
in the verses in question which denotes the gen- 
eral resurrection of the bodies of men. And it 
may be further added, that the "dust" out of 
which they "awake" does not necessarily mean 
the grave. That these words might be used 
figuratively in that sense is not denied. The 
question to be settled is, are they used in this 
passage in that application? Let it be remem- 
bered that the little horn had cast down the 
host "to the ground, and stamped upon them," 
(chapter viii, 10.) Hence their helpless and 
degraded state is well described by the figure of 
sleeping in the dust. Out of that state the angel 
was about to awake them and lift them up. 

Again. Let us recur for a moment to the 
structure of the passage. This can be best 
shown by paraphrasing the verse. " Many of 
them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall 
awake, some [the many who awake shall 
awake] to everlasting life, and some [those 



18G DANIEL VERIFIED IX HISTORY. 

who do not awake shall sleep in] shame and 
everlasting contempt." The "of" is a particle 
of severalty, and divides the "many" who should 
awake, from the " some " who should sleep in 
shame and contempt. Only the "many" who 
shall be found "written in the book" shall 
awake. The one hundred and sixty thousand 
who had been destroyed, or taken away as 
captives and sold, could not answer to the roll- 
call of the nation. It will not help the case at 
all to quote Romans v, 19, for the passage is 
not a parallel. The "many" of the apostle 
is a very different thing from the "many" 
of the prophet. The former uses the word to 
denote all the persons of whom he is speaking, 
"many were made sinners;" the latter to des- 
ignate a portion of a larger number, "many 
of them that sleep in the dust." It is perfectly 
apparent, then, that the particle of severalty 
fixes the antithesis between the states of those 
who awake, and those who do not awake, and 
not between the states of those who awake. The 
prophet, then, saw that God would put honour 
upon those who should "come up to the help of 
the Lord against the mighty," and that those 
who should "forsake the holy covenant" and 
"do wickedly against it," (see chapter .xi^ 



THE PERIODS OF CHAPTER TWELVE. 187 



30-32,*) by assisting the enemies of the cho- 
sen people, (see 1 ]\Iac. i, 52,) would sleep in 
"shame and everlasting contempt." This ex- 
position, so obviously natural, and, in our judg- 
ment, necessary, makes the whole subject har- 
monious and clear. 

Xow, although the fears of Daniel would be 
allayed in relation to the return of his people 
from Babylon, he still desired to know more of 
the design of the vision ; and especially was 
he desirous of knowing how long the state of 
suffering, which he foresaw was coming upon 
the holy city and temple, should last. 

To the first question, (verse 6,) " How long 
shall it be to the end of these wonders?" he 
is informed that it shall be for " a time, times, 
and a half" or, as the margin reads, "part" 
of a time, which may mean any fraction of a 
year. At the end of this period the abomination 

° " For the ships of Chittim shall come against him : 
therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indigna- , 
tion against the holy covenant : so shall he do : he shall even 
return, and have intelligence with them that forsake the holy 
covenant. And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall 
pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the 
daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that 
maketh desolate. And such as do wickedly against the 
covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries : but the people that 
do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits." 



188 



DAOTEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



of desolation would cease. We have already 
shown that this ended with the restoration of the 
temple service, and is equivalent in time to the 
two thousand three hundred evening morning 
sacrifices ; or that three years and seventy days 
would complete the desolation. 

To the second question, " What shall be the 
end of these things?" (verse 8,) he is told, (verse 
11,) "there shall be a thousand two hundred and 
ninety days."* We are*not left to conjecture in re- 
lation to the beginning of these days. They com- 
mence with the taking away the daily sacrifice. 
This was to continue, as we have shown, for the 
period of eleven hundred and fifty days. These 
"things" were to continue for twelve hundred and 
ninety days, which would go beyond the cleans- 
ing of the sanctuary one hundred and forty 

° We do not feel it necessary to make any formal defence 
for understanding and using the word days to mean a period 
of twenty-four hours, and nothing more. All the conditions 
of the subject require this sense to be given to the word day 
in all of the examples of its use in this chapter, unless we 
except the 13th verse. Here it is used with greater latitude, 
and represents a period given, namely, the duration of the 
captivity. This is, however, a very common use of language 
by the Jews and others. See Gen. v, o : " All the days that 
Adam lived/ 7 &c, meaning the whole period of his life. Hav- 
ing shown that all the transactions referred to in the text 
belong to the history of an individual, we feel that other proof 
is quite unnecessary. 



THE PERIODS OF CHAPTER TWELVE. 189 



days. The temple service was restored, as we 
have shown, on the 25th of Casleu, in the one 
hundred and forty-eighth year, or about the first 
of December. B. C. 163. Xow if we add to this 
one hundred and forty days, or, which is the 
same, four months and twenty days, it will car- 
ry us on to the second month of the one hundred 
and forty-ninth year, for Casleu is the ninth 
month of the ecclesiastical year of the Jews. 
But did anything occur in that year by which 
these troubles would be terminated? Let us look 
into the historv of the one hundred and fortv- 
ninth year. 

Antiochus was in Persia when the news of 
the defeat of Apollonius reached him. Finding 
that his resources were not adequate to carry 
out his first purpose of vengeance, he dispatch- 
ed Lysias with directions to exterminate the 
Jews; but he was obliged to retreat. Xicanor 
and Timotheus having been defeated, Antiochus 
set out with all expedition to throw himself at 
once upon the land of Judea, swearing that he 
would make Jerusalem the burying-place of the 
whole nation; that he would not leave a single 
inhabitant in it. The story relates that he had 
scarcely uttered this wicked and presumptuous 
threat when he was seized with insufferable 



190 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



pain. Such, however, were the transports of his 
fury and his desire of vengeance, that he urged 
on his charioteer, but being thrown violently 
from his chariot, after a short and fruitless strug- 
gle with death, he gave up his guilty soul to 
an offended God. The historian, (1 Mac. vi, 15,) 
alluding to his death, says : " So King Antiochus 
died in the one hundred and forty and ninth 
year? Here end those events the foresight of 
which gave the prophet so much pain and 
anxiety. 

There is, however, one other period named, 
which at first seems more difficult to explain, 
because, apparently, no events are given to 
determine its beginning or its ending. And 
yet we are not quite sure but that this very con- 
dition of the statement may furnish the key to 
its true interpretation. We refer to what is said 
in verse 12: " Blessed is he that waiteth, and 
cometh to the thousand three hundred and 
five and thirty days." 

It has been common, we are aware, to sup- 
pose that this period commences its date with 
the twelve hundred and ninety of the pre- 
ceding verse, when the daily was taken away, 
and, consequently, that it runs on for forty- 



THE PERIODS OF CHAPTER TWELVE. 191 



five clays after the close of the twelve hun- 
dred and ninety. This, we think, is a mistaken 
supposition. 

First. Because there is no evidence what- 
ever that it begins to date from the taking 
away of the daily. This event is made the 
beginning of the eleven hundred and fifty, and 
the twelve hundred and ninety, but not of the 
one thousand three hundred and thirty-five 
days. It seems pretty certain, then, that it 
does not refer to any circumstance related in 
the text. 

Secondly. The language, as every one can 
see, is general; suggesting the conclusion that 
it relates to some general advantage or favour 
which should be conferred at the end of the 
one thousand three hundred and thirty-five 
days. Let the reader take notice of the lan- 
guage and verbal connexion of this benediction. 
" Blessed is he that waiteth" "Waiteth after 
what? After the beginning of the desolation? 
Certainly not. But let him wait after u the end of 
these wonders " — after the event which closes the 
"thousand two hundred and ninety days." For 
it is immediately after the mention of those days 
that it is said, " Blessed is he that waiteth, and 
cometh to the thousand three hundred and five 



192 DANIEL VERIFIED EN HISTORY. 



and thirty days." Two questions arise here 
which it is important that we should answer, 

namely : 

First : To what date would one thousand 
three hundred and thirty-five days carry us, 
reckoning them from the close of the twelve 
hundred and ninety? 

Secondly : What occurred at that period, 
whicli deserves this special designation? 

L ^Te have seen that twelve hundred and 
ninety days take us on to the one hundred and 
forty-ninth year of the era of the Seleucidae. 
Xow add to this the one thousand three hundred 
and thirty-five days, and it carries us down to 
the one hundred and fifty-third year of the 
same era. 

2. But does history furnish any evidence of 
any occurrence at that date, which justifies us in 
fixing upon it as the termination of the one 
thousand three hundred and thirty-five days ? 
The one hundred and fifty-third year of the era 
of the Seleucidae would be the year B. C. 158, 
which year", according to Smith's Sacred An- 
nals, was distinguished by a formal treaty of 
peace made by the Jews with the Syrians. Hslv. 
Smith, in concluding the chapter of " The His- 
tory of the Hebrews from the Restoration to the 



THE PERIODS OF CHAPTER TWELVE. 193 



Establishment of Independence," says: "During 
this time Demetrius had still maintained the war 
with Trypho ; and Simon and the Jewish peo- 
ple, being greatly incensed against the murderer 
of Jonathan, thought the friendship of Demetri- 
us preferable to intercourse with such a perfidi- 
ous person. They accordingly sent a present of 
a gold crown to Demetrius, with overtures of 
peace. 

"This measure was the means of restoring 
the Jews to political independence. Demetri- 
us at this moment so greatly needed the aid of 
the Jews in his war with Trypho, and was so 
pleased with their voluntary adhesion to him, 
that he accepted their present, consented to 
bury in oblivion all past differences, recognised 
Simon as high priest and prince of the Jews, 
and relinquished all claims on the Jewish 
people, and these grants were published as a 
royal edict. Thus did Judea again take its 
place among the independent nations of the 
earth"* 

The reader will judge for himself whether the 
state of things now shown fulfils the condition 
of the prophecy, and the time in question. To 
us it seems unnecessary to look further. If this 

° Sacred Annals : Hebrew People, p. 433. Italics our own. 
l o 



194 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

be not the actual event to which the prophecy 
relates, it is certainly a very marvellous coinci- 
dence, and taking it for the fulfilment, it certainly 
is freer from embarrassment than any other ex- 
position which we have seen. 

A single point remains to be briefly noticed, 
and then we shall conclude this investigation. 
It is commonly assumed that the last verse of 
this chapter refers to the general resurrection; 
and if we are silent on this point, we may be 
thought to acquiesce in an interpretation which 
would militate against the general exposition 
which we have given to the other parts of the 
chapter. The words are, "But go thou thy way 
till the end he: for thou shalt rest, and stand 
in thy lot in the end of the days? " The end " 
and "end of the days," and the standing "in 
thy lot," are expressions which are thought to 
engage heavenly rest to Daniel after the final 
judgment, and, consequently, to relate to the 
future state after death. 

"We suggest that to " go thy way," is not ne- 
cessarily going 66 the way of all the earth ;" and 
that " the end " and " the end of the days," 
do not of necessity mean the end of the world. 
The words themselves certainly have not this 
absolute and unalterable application. Nor is 



THE PERIODS OF CHAPTER TWELVE. 195 



there anything in the circumstances of the nar- 
rative, which renders it necessary to give them 
a sense which makes them teach the doctrine of 
a future state. 

What were the circumstances under which 
this address was made to Daniel? Why, the 
following : Daniel was at the time, and had 
been for hours, engaged in an agony of prayer, 
pleading with God to spare his people from the 
desolations which he saw, by the vision of the 
ram and goat, were coming upon them. The 
angel-interpreter had now assured him that it 
would be "many days" (viii, 26) ere these 
troubles would come; that before that day of 
trial his people would return and build the 
temple again, even though it should be "in 
troublous times;" and that at the appointed 
time Messiah would come. Having thus an- 
swered his prayer, and explained the matter 
and the vision, he dismisses Daniel to his busi- 
ness, assuring him that he should rest, that is, 
these troubles would not arise in his day; and 
that he should return to his lot, or rights of 
inheritance in the holy land, as soon as Prov- 
idence should terminate "the days" of their 
captivity. The meaning which this general 
paraphrase puts upon the text seems the neces- 



196 



DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



sary one; for it must not be forgotten that the 
word "lot" is never used in the Scriptures to 
denote the resurrection, unless it has that mean- 
ing in this passage. We affirm this confidently, 
having examined more than fifty texts in which 
this w r ord is used, no one of which, by any 
possibility, can be made to refer to the resur- 
rection state, without violating all just rules 
of interpretation. The following examples of 
its application will be sufficient to show how 
the word lot is used and applied in the Scrip- 
tures. 

1st. It is used to signify some mode of deter- 
mining right, as in Numb, xxvi, 55, 56: "Not- 
withstanding, the land shall be divided by lot : 
according to the names of the tribes of their 
fathers they shall inherit. According to the lot 
shall the possession thereof be divided between 
many and few." 

2d. To decide a controversy, as in Psalm 
xxii, 18 : "They part my garments among them, 
and cast lots upon my vesture." 

3d. Or it means that which is acquired by 
lot. Hence we have, Joshua xvi, 1, "the lot 
of Joseph;" xyii, 1, "a lot for Manasseh." 
Luke i, 9, "his lot [or order] was to burn 
incense." 



THE PERIODS OF CHAPTER TWELVE. 197 

Perhaps it will be said that Daniel died in 
Babylon, or in Persia, and therefore our inter- 
pretation of the text cannot be the right one. 
But let us ask, in all candor, what ground 
is there for this objection, except that "it 
is generally believed that he died at Susa?" 
"We ask the reader's attention to the following 
facts : 

First. Daniel was living at the close of the 
captivity. This is indisputable, for a portion of 
his prophecy was written after the installation 
of the Persian government in Babylon. 

Secondly. Among the returned captives was 
one bearing the name of Daniel, and having 
the known characteristics of the prophet Daniel 
to a degree, and with a circumstantiality, that 
cannot be shown to have belonged to any other 
Daniel than the identical one in question. 

We are not prepared to affirm without quali- 
fication that he did return ; still, as he was alive 
at the time of the building of the second temple, 
it was quite possible, and there is much that 
makes it probable that he did return. 

We will place this subject before the reader, 
and let him judge of the value of the objection 
in the light of the evidence bearing upon the 
case. 



198 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE DANIEL 
WHO WENT TO BABYLON. 

Dan. i, 3, 6 : And the king 
spake unto Asbpenaz the 
master of the eunuchs, that 
he should bring certain of 
the children of Israel, and 
of the king's seed, and of 
the princes. . . . Now 
among these were of the 
children of Judab, Daniel, 
Hananiah, Mishael, and Az- 
ariah. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE DANIEL 
WHO RETURNED. 

Neh. ix, 38 : And because 
of all this we make a sure 
covenant and write it ; and 
our princes, Levites, and 
priests, seal unto it. 

x, 1, 6 : Now those that 
sealed were . . Daniel, &c. 

Ezra also says, chap, viii, 
1, 2: "These are now the 
chief oi their fathers, and this 
is the genealogy of them that 
went up with me from Baby- 
lon, in the reign of Artaxerx- 
es the king. Of the sons of 
Phinehas ; Gershom : of the 
sons of Ithamar ; Daniel. 



Let the reader bring together the evidence 
noted in the portions of the above quotations 
which we have italicised, and we think he will see 
that something more is necessary to support the 
objection that Daniel died in Persia, than a 
mere say so founded upon a fatherless tradition. 

The Daniel who went to Babylon was of royal 
Hood, and, therefore, a "prince" The some 
Daniel was alive at the close of the captivity, 
and, indeed, for several years thereafter, and thus 
it was possible for him to have returned. And 
in consideration of his age, talents, and influence, 
both among his own people, and the Babyloni- 
ans and Persians, he might very well be entitled 
one of " the chief of their fathebs." And hence, 



THE PERIODS OF CHAPTER TWELVE. 199 



if it be remembered that, besides these striking 
correspondences, the vision was explained in 
the first year of Darius, which was the year 
after the fall of Beishazzar ; and that it was in 
concluding that exposition that the angel told 
Daniel that he should "stand in his lot/' the 
natural sense of which is, to be put in posses- 
sion of it, can it be reasonably doubted that the 
Daniel which Ezra and Xehemiah show in Ju- 
dea, is the Daniel which we have seen occupy- 
ing the field of prophecy? A fair and legiti- 
mate exposition of this text, shows that it not 
only does not contradict the doctrine of our 
exposition, but harmonizes with it, and with the 
facts of history, so far, at least, as they are 
known, in relation to the general subject. 

It is, perhaps, time to bring this discussion 
to a close, although we have omitted many 
very interesting things which belong to this im- 
portant portion of prophecy. We have dwelt, 
however, upon those portions and topics of the 
book which we judged most important to a right 
understanding of the general purposes of the 
prophecy, and which we thought would be 
most interesting to the general reader. Our 
main conclusions differ in many respects from 
those of other writers upon this subject. This, 



200 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

however, is not our fault, for we began the study 
of this book of prophecy without any theory or 
prepossession which would have led to the doc- 
trinal results to which our exposition has carried 
us. If we had any predilections at all, they 
were such as favoured the current opinions con- 
cerning the meaning of this prophecy. And we 
can say, with all sincerity, that it would have 
been far more agreeable to us, if we could 
have found evidence to justify us in accepting 
the results of the labours of other men : partly, 
because a sensitive person feels the awkward- 
ness of a position which puts him in conflict 
with so many good and great men, who have 
come to other conclusions; and partly because 
we do not know that a single intelligent mind 
sympathizes with us in the views which are put 
forth in this treatise. And yet, so thoroughly 
are we convinced of the truth of our views, 
that, if need be, we are willing to stand alone ; 
not that we do not love public countenance 
and approval, but because we love honesty 
and truth more. 

Finally. The prophecies contained in the 
book of Daniel, when rightly interpreted, fur- 
nish evidence of the divine authority of reve- 
lation, and especially of the New Testament 



THE PERIODS OF CHAPTER TWELVE 201 

Scriptures, not exceeded in amount by any- 
other portion of the Old Testament canon. 
Taking the time of the Messiah's coming as the 
central object of these announcements, a mul- 
titude of lesser objects come clustering into the 
scene, which give both outline and shading to 
the prophetic picture. The history of revela- 
tion in its progress and order is, in some re- 
spects, like the early development of nature. 
There was a time when no star adorned the 
heavens; no golden light shed its beams upon 
the darkness of chaos; but when the omnific 
word went forth, sun and stars appeared ; planet 
after planet, system after system, followed, and 
wheeling into their respective orbits, began their 
" ceaseless course," till at length the whole heav- 
ens were studded with beauty and glory. Thus 
was it, when, by the transgression of man, a 
dark night had set in upon the moral world. 
First, the star of promise rose, and its gentle 
beams, falling upon the guilty heart of man, 
awoke in him again the hope of an immortal 
life. With each revolving period of history 
came new stars of light, and these, clustering 
over the hill of Zion, formed a galaxy for human 
hope, until the Sun of Righteousness should arise, 
with healing in his . wings. But no light which 



202 DANIEL VERIFIED IN HISTORY. 

had arisen shed a broader or steadier beam upon 
the day when the divine mercy should appear 
full-orbed, than the Danielitic prophecy. 

Nor do any of the holy seers afford fuller 
attestations than Daniel of the power and in- 
terpositions of Almighty God in the affairs of 
men. That faith, in the power and comfort in 
which we rejoice to-day, has one of its mail? 
pillars formed of the firm rocks of truth which 
have been quarried from this mine. 

Was ever prophecy so clearly fulfilled, and 
shown to be so by such incontestable evidence, 
as the prophecy of Daniel? How clear and 
strong the evidence it gives in favour of our 
Christ, may be inferred from the strenuous 
efforts of infidels and Jews to set aside the 
book itself. But the history of the generations 
over which this prophecy sheds its light, attests 
its truth and certifies its value to every believ- 
ing heart. And if this brief and honest attempt 
shall make clearer and freer the great moral 
truths and purposes of this book, than has hith- 
erto been accomplished by the multitude of ex- 
positions given of it, we shall not regret the 
time nor the labour which we have devoted to 
its elucidation. 

THE END. 



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in Prosperity — Faith in Adversity — Faith in Life and in Death. 

This book belongs to a class that has been rare of late years. 
It is a calm, thoughtful, yet uncontroversial survey of a great 
Christian doctrine in its bearings upon theology in general, and 
upon tho Christian life in practice. We hope it may find many 
readers. -Methodist Quarterly Review. 




WORKS PUBLISHED BY CAELTON & PHILLIPS, 

200 Mulberry -street, New-York. 



Parker s (Mrs.) Christian Church. 

Annals of the Christian Church, in Familiar Conversations 
for Young Persons. By Mrs. Parker. 

18mo., pp. 324. Muslin 80 35 

This work was especially composed for the use of the young. Its 
aim is to convey, in a familiar style, such a view of the chief 
occurrences in ecclesiastical history as may furnish the youth- 
ful rnind with a genera] knowledge of the subject, and prepare 
the way for more extensive and careful researches. Attention 
is paid to the order of events, to the external forms which 
Christianity has assumed in different ages, and to the great 
principles which no time or place can change, and which must 
always constitute the basis of the true Church of Christ. 

We very cordially recommend this excellent volume. Why should 
the young have abridged histories of Greece, Rome, &c., and 
the history of Christ's Church be withheld from them 1 We do 
not, however, mean to say that this is only a book for the young. 
Those who have not time for the perusai of larger works, wiil 
find these " Annals " to be far more than a mere sketch of events 
and dates. 

Wesley s Letters. 

Select Letters, chiefly on Personal Religion. By Rev. John 
Wesley. With a Sketch of his Character, by Rev. Sajiuel 
Bradburn. 

12mo., pp. 240. Muslin SO 50 

Mr. Wesley's Letters were written not to circulate idle gossip, 
or to nourish a sickly sentimentality, but to urge forward his 
correspondents in the divine life, that they might attain all the 
mind there was in Christ, and make their calling and election 
sure. They present an agreeable variety of subjects ; and it is 
hoped they will prove acceptable to a numerous ciass of read- 
ers to whom the entire works of the venerable writer are inac- 
cessible. To the use of the closet, and of private reading, it is 
presumed, they are especially adapted. The " Sketch of Mr. 
Wesley's Character," by which the letters are introduced, con- 
tains several interesting notices concerning the founder of 
Methodism which are not generally known. 

Curiosities of Animal Life. 

Curiosities of Animal Life, as developed by the Recent Dis- 
coveries of the Microscope. With illustrations and Index. 
Revised by Rev. D. P. Kidder. 

12mo., pp. 184, Muslin §0 50 

One of the most novel and interesting books of the times. 



WORKS PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PHILLIPS, 

200 Mulberry-street, New-York. 



Friendships of the Bible. 

The Friendships of the Bible. By Amicus. Embellished 
with Engravings. 



The subjects of this attractive volume are, David and Jonathan ; 
Abraham and Eliezer: Elisha and the Shunammite; Paul, 
Joseph, and Rnth; Fortuitous Acts of Friendship; Rulers; 
Bethany; Jesus and John. 

Memoir of Richard Williams. 

Memoir of Richard Williams, Surgeon : Catechist to the 
Patagonian Missionary Society in Terra del Fuego. By 
James Hamilton, D. D. 

16mo., pp. 270. Muslin SO 30 

This is really one of the most profoundly interesting and sug- 
gestive narratives we have ever read. — St. Louis Presbyterian. 
• In the way of a touching narrative of Christian faith, persevering 
and increasing even to the end, this wwk has few equals. — 
Newark Daily Advertiser. 

Young says: " That life is long which answers life's great end." 
If this be true, the brief lifo of Richard Williams was longer 
than that of many who attain to three-score years and ten. 
He has illustrated, in a remarkable manner, the strength of 
love and the power of faith. While enduring the most severe 
suffering, with the prospect of a lingering and dreadful death 
before him, his soul rested in perfect tranquillity upon God as 
upon a rock, sheltering itself trustingly under the wing of 
Almighty Love, and joying even in being permitted to suffer 
for Christ's sake. Thus does God compensate his children who 
deny themselves from love to him, by inward peace and happi- 
ness, of which only those who make such sacrifices can have 
any conception. 

Greek and Eastern Churches. 

The Greek and Eastern Churches: their History, Faith 

and Worship. 



Contents. Origin of the Greek Church — Its Progress and Pres- 
ent State — Tenets and Ceremonies of the Greek Church — 
Worthies of the Greek Church — Heretics and Sectaries of the 
Greek Church— Relations of Protestantism to the Greek Church. 

A very timely book, giving, in a brief but clear form, an account 
of the history, faith, and worship of the Greek and Russian 
Churches. It will be seen from this book how little would be 
gained to Christianity by thn triumph of Czar Nicholas in the 
war he is now so unrighteously waging. 



12mo., pp. 140. Muslin. 



W 55 



18mo., pp. 220. Muslin 



SO 24 



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WORKS PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PHILLIPS, 



200 Mulberry-street, New-York. 



Memoir of Rev. S. B. Bangs. 

The Young Minister : or, Memoirs and Remains of Stephen 
Beekman Bangs, of the New-York East Conference. By 
W. H. N. Mageuder, M. A. With a Portrait. 

12mo., pp. 388. Muslin ... $0 70 

There are some classes who may derive peculiar profit from a study 
of this book. Young ministers of the gospel may deduce from it 
the elements of a happy and prosperous professional career. 
Students may be led to inquire closely into their duty, and 
may be prepared conscientiously to decide whether or not God 
is calling them to the responsible work of the Christian minis- 
try. Parents may see the effect of a careful and rigid and truly 
kind training of their children. And finally, ail may be stimu- 
lated to a holy life by the energetic and eloquent discourses that 
follow. — Rev. E. O. Haven. 

History of the Inquisition. 

The Brand of Dominic : or, Inquisition at Rome " Supreme 
and Universal." By Rev. William H. Rule. With five 
Engravings. 

12mo., pp. 892. Muslin $0 75 

This small volume should be in the hands of every one who 
takes an interest in the Papal question. — Church of England 
Quarterly Review. 

We cannot know too much of that horrible and Satanic insti- 
tution, of which this valuable little work treats, and treats so 
ably. — Evangelical Christendom. 

Lives of the Popes. 

The Lives oe the Popes. From A. D. 100 to A. D. 1853. 
From the London Edition. 

12mo., pp. 566. Muslin $0 80 

We take pleasure in placing the work before American readers in 
a more convenient form than that of its first publication, and 
trust that it will be extensively perused by young and old 
throughout our land. No nation ought to be better acquainted 
than ours with the history of the Popes, and the system of reli- 
gion of which they are acknowledged heads; for none has more 
to fear from the movements of Romanists. 

There is no work extant, to our knowledge, that covers the same 
ground. It gives in compendious form the history of the 
Papacy from its very beginning clown to the pontificate of 
Pius IX.— a kind of information which the American people 
stand much in need of just now. — Methodist Quarterly Review. 



The work is well adapted to popular reading, and supplies a previ- 
ous lack in the current literature of the age— Christian Wit- 
ness. 




WORKS PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PHILLIPS, 

200 Mulberry-street, New-York. 



Hoyfs Social Melodies. 

Family and Social Melodies. A Collection of Choice Tunes 
and Hymns. Especially adapted to Family and Social 
Devotion. By Rev. William C. Hoyt, M. A. 

8vo., pp. 224, Muslin 80 60 

The hymns in this work are mostly from our own Hymn Book ; 
the times are plain and familiar airs. It is characterized by 
good judgment and excellent taste in its selections, and will be 
popular. — Zioris Herald. 

A most excellent aid to family devotion. We recognize many 
of the good old tunes and hymns, and some new ones. The 
music is conveniently arranged for the melodeon, seraphine, 
piano, and organ ; and an index of subjects at the end will ena- 
ble the leader of the devotions at once to select suitable hymns. 
Let Christians sing at the family altar; the little ones will thus 
learn the songs of Zion, and the great congregations will become 
one grand choir, verifying the demand of the Holy Oracles : 
"Let the people praise thee; let all the people praise thee."' — 
National Magazine. 

Both in its matter and its form, we think, this work meets pre- 
cisely one of the Church's urgent needs. Family worship is in- 
complete without sacred song; and we trust this little book 
will cause many a family altar, heretofore silent, to become 
vocal with the praise of God "in Psalms and hymns." — Method- 
ist Quarterly Revieiv. 

Switzerland. 

Switzerland ; Historical and Descriptive. 

18mo., pp. 214. Muslin $0 24 

Part I. Historical: The Dim Distance — Seeds of Nationality — 
Heroism and Independence — The Reformation — Wars of Re- 
ligion — A Long Peace — Overthrow and Restoration. Part II. 
Descriptive: Nature — Art — Society. 

Successful Men. 0 T 4 

Successful Men of Modern Times. From the London 
Edition. 

18mo.,pp. 208. Muslin $0 24 

Contexts. A few Words about Success in general — Successful 
Merchants, Tradesmen, and Manufacturers— Successful Engi- 
neers and Inventors — Successful Artists, Painters, and Sculptors 
— Successful Poets, Scholars, and Men of Science — Successful 
Public Men — Successful Warriors and Philanthropists — Habits 
of Reading and Observation, as the Means of Social Elevation. 

The work is calculated to do good as a stimulant to exertion in 
the right direction, and with right ends in view. We trust it 
will meet with general favour. — Christian Intelligencer. 

h 6 7 4 4 — —4 



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